These Twists and Turns of Fate
by Hinn-Raven
Summary: To be born is to exist, but to live is something else entirely. Stephanie Brown falls apart, and pulls herself back together. OR Stephanie Brown is assigned a different name and gender at birth. These are the changes that result.


**A/N: **Title comes from "Little Wonders" by Rob Thomas. It's a beautiful song, and quite fitting for Steph.

I am cisgender and neurotypical. Why tell you this? Because Stephanie Brown, in this story, is transgender and suffers from PTSD. I did my research, and I tried to write it as respectfully as I could, but if anything in this fic is either amazingly inaccurate or offensive (not counting STEPH IS NOT TRANS HOW DARE YOU) I will go and fix it as best I can. I hope you all enjoy.

* * *

Some people say that names are destiny.

That is, in the words of simple folk, pure and utter bullshit.

Other people say that names are meaningless.

That is also pure and utter bullshit.

The reality of names, like most things, falls somewhere between the two proposed extremes.

Names are important. Just ask any expecting parent or movie star or writer—there's something about names.

Names work a bit like this. Typically, your first name is given to you. Usually it's by a parent, but not always. Someone looks at squirmy, wrinkled, small _you_, and gives you a name. Maybe not right away, but soon enough. For some people, that's all the name that's ever needed.

But it doesn't always work that way. Sometimes a name needs twisting—a Richard becomes a Rich or a Rick or a Rickie or a Dick—in order to fit the owner right. Sometimes the best name is a middle name, or a last name, or even a title, not discovered into later in life.

Sometimes even the nickname is wrong though, burning and scalding or just a slow, quiet itch that can never be scratched. "Junior" was like this for the young Brown. Everything about it felt wrong, so Arthur was the next, obvious choice. It was only natural; it's what the birth certificate read.

But that name felt even worse—and the eight year old thought that it was because the name was _Dad's_, and the name was wrong because Dad was wrong, so the logical thing to do was to carve away at the name. Shave away the letters, until something suitable was left behind. Timothy becomes Tim. Cassandra becomes Cass. Carve away, peel away the letters, until what's left is presentable.

'Art' was what remained, and it would have to do. It wasn't right, it didn't fit, but it was better than the other names.

And that's why names aren't destiny, because you pick your name, you can change it if you want to, and the one given to you isn't always _yours_.

Names have a habit of creating _assumptions_. People _think_ things when they hear certain names. Racial or ethnic connotations, a memory of an old bully, a friend, a celebrity, or a fictional character.

The name 'Arthur' carries its own set of connotations.

For Crystal Brown, it is the name of the man she married and the child she had, so it's a name that's both painful and joyful, and it's why she only ever calls her child 'Art', as soon as the nickname is embraced.

A linguist would tell you that the name Arthur is Celtic in origin, although it might stem from the name of a Roman family. The name means "strong as a bear".

A historian would tell you the popularity of the name stems from the legend of King Arthur, who comes from Welsh mythology.

But there is one, crucial implication of that name, and that is what matters to the child of Crystal and Arthur Brown, Sr., born Arthur Adam Brown, Jr. And that is why the name burns.

Arthur is a boy's name, and the child is not a boy, despite what her birth certificate and society insists, and her friends and family will mistakenly believe.

* * *

She goes a long time without hearing the words "transgender" or "trans woman". Even when she meets the first person like her, Marcie, when she's six, Marcie doesn't use the words.

She meets Marcie at the playground across from her apartment building. There, she plays games with boys and with girls, uncaring for the rigorously color-coded separation that parents seem to care for so much. She tugs on her navies and greens, and quietly envies the brilliant shades of pinks and purples that the girls wear.

She plays rough, and competitively, racing to the top of the jungle gyms and across the playground, leaving the others in her wake, slower than her, always slower than her. But sometimes, she sits and watches, catching her breath and beaming widely, exhilarated and content in the sunshine.

It is there, sitting on a bench, humming and swinging her feet, waiting to get her breath back so she can start running again, that Art meets Marcie.

Marcie is pretty, with soft brown eyes that are carefully framed with dark lines of makeup, the edges curling up towards her temples elegantly, and bright, pretty lips stained a different color every day. Her skin was pale brown, her hair delightfully frizzy, teased into a neat puff behind her head.

Marcie comes to the park with her half-sister, a rambunctious six year-old who can beat Art at climbing but never at running, and Marcie always sits alone. The other sisters, brothers, parents and care-givers avoid Marcie, so Art sits by her instead, always willing to talk.

"Why do they look at you like that?" Art asks one day, bouncing a green bouncy-ball off the sidewalk, a frown playing on her face.

Marcie's eyes turn to Art, and Art wishes those eyes weren't so sad. Marcie was so nice, she didn't deserve to be sad. Marcie examines Art, looking for something. Whatever she's looking for, she seems to find it in the grubby faced child wearing a Gotham Knight T-Shirt.

"I wasn't born Marcie," the woman confides, leaning in to whisper to Art. "I was born James. But I was a girl, see? But they all thought I was a boy, so they weren't very happy when I started wearing dresses and makeup. People think it's wrong; not being the gender they say you should be. They want me to be something I'm not, and I can't lie about that. Not anymore. So I wear my skirts and I call myself Marcie, and they glare and hate me."

Art looks at Marcie, her mouth hanging open and something stirring within her. "How did you know you were a girl?" She asks, heart pounding in her chest, and she can't keep her voice from sounding wistful.

And Marcie, sweet, dear Marcie, _sees_ Art. She sees the hope shining in those dark blue eyes, the desperation for an explanation of why the world insists that Art is a "he", why she can't wear what she wants and why her name doesn't fit. Art looks at Marcie like she contains all the secrets of the universe, and Marcie smiles, and starts to tell Art everything that she knows.

For the next two days Art doesn't play with the other children; instead she soaks up Marcie's words and learns about being a girl, and finally starts to think of herself as a girl, in the safety of her own head, if not out loud.

But on the third day, Marcie and her sister aren't there, and Art is desperate and confused. She plays kick the can with a scowl on her face, worried about where Marcie is.

Marcie comes back two days later, her face bruised and her arm in a sling. "Art, dear," Marcie hugs Art as best as she can with her broken arm. "Listen to me," she whispers into Art's ear as they hug. "Be proud of who you are. You're beautiful, don't be ashamed. But be careful. Some people use violence against those who don't fit the parts they think they should fit in. Don't tell _anyone_ you don't trust—not until you're safe from them. Be _careful_."

Art takes these words to heart, burying these words of wisdom inside her very being.

And when she hears Dad bragging to his friends about how he beat up someone, using slurs and laughing, and listening to them laugh as well, she realizes just how much danger she's in, from her own family.

* * *

On Dad's insistence, she does sports; track and field, cross country, and soccer. It builds up muscle mass; lean and narrow, a runner more than upper body strength, but she takes up javelin and shot-put as well, and her aim is pretty good. But she's built for endurance more than anything—her coaches are impressed. "That boy's tough. He's not gonna let _anything_ beat him."

Later, after she becomes Spoiler, she takes up martial arts, and her stamina and endurance are phenomenal but she never picks up more than the basics from them—money runs out and she withdraws, and begins to take lessons from Tim, and later Cass, who are better teachers anyway.

Mom wants her to be "balanced", whatever that means, so Steph takes piano lessons from Ms. Nolan down the hall, twenty dollars a lesson, one lesson a week, and learns to play. Art loves to play; she always looks forward for the hour escape to Ms. Nolan's apartment every week, playing classical music to soothe away her bumps and bruises, her aches and her tears. When things go bad, and Mom spirals into drugs and loneliness and depression, and everything goes sour and money gets tight, Art does chores for Ms. Nolan to keep the lessons going. It's not nearly enough, but Ms. Nolan lets it slide, and Art pretends it's enough, to salvage her scant pride.

Mom buys an old upright piano when Art is six, and it's Art's most precious possession, which she guards diligently and polishes regularly. She scrapes and saves every other year to bring the tuner in, to look after it, and he shakes his head every time she plays when he's in earshot.

"You deserve better," he says with a sigh. "You've got talent, boy."

Art ducks her head and smiles softly at the compliment, tracing the broken edges of the keys with her finger, and plays Muzio Clementi's _Waltz in G Major_, her foot clamped firmly down on the practice pedal so she doesn't disturb her mother.

* * *

The first time Dad locks her in the closet, she had borrowed her mother's pink shirt and worn it around the house, wearing a pair of red heels with it.

Dad rips the shirt off her, ripping it to shreds, and throws her in the closet and slams the door behind her, leaving her trapped in the darkness. She cries out when her head slams against the wall, leaving a nasty bruise that won't fade for weeks.

"Little F****t!" Arthur Brown screams through the door, furious, and Art curls up and sobs, terrified of her father, remembering Marcie's words and warnings.

He doesn't hit her, he never hits her, but she learns that the closet is where she goes when she acts "un-manly", or "like a sissy", or just generally does anything he disapproves of.

Arthur Brown, Sr. wants his child to be a jock, and just as amoral as he is. He also wants a son; a heterosexual cisgender son who shares all of his opinions about the "degenerates". What he gets instead is a transgender bisexual daughter who believes with all her might in heroes and a brighter future; one that involves him out of her life and her mother happy and clean.

She spends a lot of time in the closet, over the years.

Sometimes, when she grows older and stronger, she tries to fight back, but he's always stronger than her, no matter what she does or how hard she fights, she always ends up in the closet, curled up in that dark space with the small walls, and crying and terrified. Sometimes she's in there for _days_, and she's hungry and thirsty when he finally lets her out, and he grins at her and feeds her, as if nothing has happened.

She turns fifteen, and she decides _no more._

She looks up at the Bat Signal one night, and her mouth becomes thin and set. Maybe Art can't stop Cluemaster, or even Arthur Brown, but someone else can.

Someone can spoil his plans.

* * *

She sews the Spoiler costume out of thick purple drapes that the neighbors had thrown out. The cloak isn't enough, however, so she fashions an under-suit out of spandex and a Kevlar vest she finds in her dad's stash of weapons. He won't notice it's gone, hopefully, and she stitches it into her costume, making her seem bulkier than she actually is.

There's a moment, when she considers taking steps—faking a bust and maybe, just maybe, making Spoiler a girl, a proper girl, not just thinking of herself as a girl inside the privacy of her own head and faking it everywhere else, acting and walking like a boy.

But she chickens out, and the suit remains unaltered and masculine. She knows her dad will find out soon; that he'll find out what she's doing and stop her, lock her in the closet for a month, but she doesn't want to think of what her dad would do if he knew the truth about his "son" being a girl. She remembers Marcie's words, and knows that she can't beat him. Not yet. Maybe Batman can though; and maybe, when Dad's in jail, and out of their lives, she can tell Mom, and she can be free.

She hopes with all her heart for this future, and it fills her with a longing that will follow her for the rest of her days.

* * *

Batman uncovers who she is in less than a day, and he grips her arm so hard that she thinks he's leaving finger shaped bruises on her biceps. His gauntleted fingers are a steel vice—inescapable and terrifying, and it takes all the reserves of courage she has built up to face her father to prevent herself from cowering.

"Arthur Brown Junior," he snarled, his voice painfully deep. She winces and tries to pull free, but his fingers are locked. "What game are you playing?"

"I'm not playing anything!" She snaps, trying to use anger to cover up her fear. "He's going to hurt people! A lot of people! And I'm not going to let that happen!"

He doesn't trust her, she can see that, and it _hurts_. He's a hero; he's not supposed to be like Mrs. Jenkins, who won't let her children play with "the no-good son of Arthur Brown" or the principal, who refuses to ever listen to her side of the story because she's from Crime Alley and is obviously up to no good. Batman's supposed to be _better_; he's supposed to not judge her because she's poor and desperate and her dad's a criminal—he's supposed to _understand_, to help her, to _understand her_. It's at that moment that she puts up walls around herself, refusing to trust Batman. It's not until later she begins to _fear_ him, however.

"What's he going to do?" Robin is handsome and worried, his face less suspicious than that of his mentor, although Art can see he doesn't quite trust her either. But she _did_ hit him with a brick, so she figures that's fair enough.

She tells them, the eavesdropped plan spilling out of her. "I'm not going to _let him_," she tells them, half begging, half telling.

"Why didn't you just tell the police?" Batman demands.

"Like they'd believe _me_!" She says, laughing. "And what if Dad found out? He'd—" She cuts herself off, unwilling to admit just what Dad would do to her or Mom, even if she's not entirely sure just _how_ he'd react herself. But if the closet is punishment for acting like a girl—what would the punishment for ruining his plans be like?

* * *

In the End, Cluemaster goes to jail, bouncing between Blackgate and Arkham. Art refuses to let her mother go see him, and she doesn't answer his one phone call, and deletes the voice mail he leaves without listening to it.

Spoiler was there when they took him away—she'd helped bring him down, much to Batman's anger.

Art fills the closet with cleaning supplies, making sure there's no room for her to be shoved in anymore, and changes the door, so there is no lock. Art sells all his clothes, all his _things_, scrubbing him from the apartment and their life. She gets her mom, on one of her sober periods, to file for divorce, and with relief, it goes through.

Art clears out the traces of Arthur Brown from her life, and then, with a grin on her face and hope in her heart, returns to the streets as Spoiler.

* * *

Robin comes to see her a week later, and she's so attracted to him that it makes her feel dizzy, and he's attracted back; he's not put off by the fact that she looks like a boy (he thinks she's a boy; he can't see through her façade, and that is both a relief and a nightmare.) He kisses her, and her world stops, and she's practically shaking with joy, because someone _wants her_, and she pretends that maybe that will be enough; maybe she will stop hating mirrors, maybe she will stop longing to steal her mother's makeup, maybe she will just be _normal_.

* * *

Mom gets better, Mom gets worse. Mom goes clean, Mom relapses. Art becomes used to the ups and the downs, and does her best to look after her, making sure there's food and water, making sure someone checks in with her if Art can't. Art has poison control on speed-dial, hoping she never will have to call them.

"You're just like your father," Mom says on one of her worse days, delirious with the pills, pupils dilated and swaying on her feet, while Art tries to study at the kitchen table. "He was so sweet when I married him. He said he'd look after me." Crystal Brown's laughter was bitter, and it hurts Art a thousand times more than anything her father had ever said to her. "You look just like him. Your smile…" She waves her hand at Art. Suddenly, her mood shifts, from mopey to furious, and she stands up, her voice rising and her face flushing. "You come home with scars!" Crystal grabs Art to steady herself, and her fingernails dig into Art's skin, but the words hurt more, far more, than the series of small divots in her skin. "You come home with bruises and you don't tell me where you go, or who you're with—I wanted better for you! I wanted you not to be a part of this!"

She cries, and Art knows it's just the drugs (or at least, that's what she tells herself) and so she puts her mother to bed and stares at the mirror, and slowly, gathers her long blond hair into a ponytail. She pierces her ears the next day, trying to distance herself from that image of her father.

She still comes home with scars and bruises; and Crystal Brown fears her "son"; and even with her husband gone, she doesn't get better, and is constantly (and vocally) sure that the child is just like the father, and Art is left desperately alone when she's at home.

She goes to Robin instead, who, even if he doesn't show her his face, at least doesn't think she's her father reborn. She spends nights with him, tripping over herself and racing across rooftops and helping people, and she tries to undo the sins of her father, and hopes that one day, her mother will see that she _is_ a part of something better than her father.

* * *

Batman doesn't trust her, doesn't like her, but she doesn't care. She _doesn't_.

He doesn't let Robin show her his eyes, but she doesn't care about that either. Robin won't tell her his name, but it's not like Art is her name, not really. And she doesn't tell him about her gender—she lets him assume because she can't bear the thought of losing him, and despite everything, despite the kisses and the hand holding and everything, she doesn't fully trust him. She doesn't trust anyone, really. She hopes that one day it will change, but for now, she buries her secrets and fakes a smile.

But she still shows him her piano, still plays for him, like she's never played for anyone before. She plays _Romanze_ by Melody Bober, her fingers tracing the familiar chords and notes up and down the keyboard, pouring everything into the passages, feeling his body pressed next to hers.

She's never played with more emotion, but she's also never made more mistakes, but Tim doesn't notice, caught up in the music, the dramatic scales and romantic passages sweeping him up, and sweeping her along with him.

The last few notes fade out and he kisses her, and she can see he's surprised at how well she plays; that there's more to her than the tenacity and smiles. She tries not to be bothered that he thinks it's strange how much she loves to play and how important her music is to her, and instead focuses on his kisses and the feel of being the focus of his world.

* * *

Tim tells her who he is one day, quietly, as they hide in a park, stealing kisses in the shadows and whispering stories to each other as they sit on the swing set.

"Does it bother you?" He asks, staring at the moonlit sky. The air pollution in Gotham is too thick to see stars, but the moon hung in the sky, huge and shining and silver. The Batsignal shines in the sky, almost as large and brilliant. "That you don't know who I am. That we hide like this?"

"Not too much," she says, and it's mostly true, even though she wishes that she could tell him the truth; that the secrets could be gone and there be nothing but honesty. But she's a liar and a coward, and she fears what the truth will do. She still can see Marcie's bruised face, flickering in her dreams as she sleeps; she knows the price of coming out.

No one knows about _them_, at least Art believes that to be true. Tim's not out of the closet; he's entrenched firmly, scared of what his father (whoever he is) or Batman might think. Art doesn't care—her father is gone and her mother doesn't care, but she hides for his sake, pretending to just be his friend in public and adoring him in the darkness, kissing him and holding him and hoping he will never ask for more than kisses; the thought of sex is nauseating in the body she possesses.

But she does wonder, sometimes—if Batman wouldn't approve of Tim being gay, what would he think of a trans girl? She shudders whenever she thinks about it, and bars the doors to her own closet, wondering when she'll ever be safe enough to come out.

"I'm Tim Drake," he says to her, softly. He takes off his mask, and his eyes are beautiful.

She stares at him, mesmerized. His eyes are beautiful—grey blue in color, always moving, darting all over her face, searching for something. She thinks she's in love. She kisses him instead of telling him, because she doesn't trust him with that part of her heart yet. She's seen her mother, she sees what love can do to a person if they're not careful. And even though she thinks Tim won't ever hurt her like that, she still can't bring herself to say the words anyway. So she kisses him instead, pushing all her emotions into it, and Tim clings to her, and she thinks, _if he'd just hold me like this forever, I could stay a boy. For him_. And she's scared by that, as soon as she thinks it, because she knows it's not true.

He introduces her to his dad as a "friend from school" and she starts to go over to his house to "study". And she smiles so much it hurts, sometimes, enough to almost forget the sting of her body, her pronouns, and her name being _wrong_.

_Maybe someday, it will be different_, she thinks desperately, kissing him on his bed, textbooks scattered all over the floor, the door locked and the curtains pulled tightly shut. _Maybe one day, I won't have to lie anymore_.

* * *

There are quakes, there is plague, the world falls apart, and then Congress declares the unthinkable.

"Get out!" Tim pleads with her, his face pale and his eyes desperate. She kisses him and promises to try, but she knows she's lying to him again. Mom has relapsed again; and Art hates her, sometimes, for leaving her alone like this, alone in Gotham City, alone in the world. She knows it's not fair; knows that it's hard for Mom as well, that this illness eats at her very soul, but she's _fifteen_. She shouldn't have to look after her mother, she shouldn't have had to grow up with her father, she shouldn't have to lie and answer to a name and pronouns that aren't hers.

Steph spends every cent they have to book her mother in a rehab program in Metropolis, and packs her off, and then desperately tries to find a place to go for herself, calling every name in her mother's address book. She doesn't have any family, she has no credit, and she has no way of finding a place to stay; social services is her only option, and the thought of losing her mother for good; of losing everything, is too much to bear. Finally, desperately, she goes to Bruce, hoping he'll offer her _something_ even though he hates her, but he's nowhere to be found, and Dick and Tim are already gone, and so she's stuck in Gotham when it's closed off, the bridges falling into the river with an awful noise, and Gotham begins to tear itself apart for matches and cans of food.

She goes to Babs, because she knows Babs a little, and she thinks she can be of _some use_, perhaps, to the Oracle, in this world without electricity and the internet.

"Arthur!" Barbara exclaims, and Art winces at the hated name, but doesn't correct her, because she's desperate and doesn't want to seem ungrateful when she's about to ask for favors, for salvation. "Why are you…?"

"I had nowhere to go," Art whispers dully. Her hair is greasy and tangled, her face is grubby and her eyes are surrounded by dark circles. "I got my mom out. That's what matters."

Babs looks at Art, eyes narrow and piercing green, and Art wonders what the all-seeing Oracle sees in the all-too-male-body that stands before her.

"I can always use more help," Babs says cryptically, and gives Art a smile.

Art works for Babs as a runner, gathering supplies and helping people when she can. The ultimate goal is to keep order and get Babs's network up and running.

Art learns a lot about fixing telephone lines and trying to set up satellites. She runs with Helena Bertinelli and Azrael, and tries to help children find the various church or charitable groups that try to protect them. She helps Doctor Leslie in her clinic, and tries to bring people who need medical attention to her, but she fails _so often_, and it hurts her, but Leslie is kind and sweet, and Steph goes there more often than she should, soaking up the maternal feeling that she's so often gone without.

She meets Cassandra two months in; Babs has sent them on the same errand, and they help each other once they realize they both work for the all-seeing Oracle. The girl is silent and curious, hardworking and determinedly kind, but still fierce and dangerous, with fighting skills that Art has never seen the like of. Art likes her a lot, and tries to befriend her. Babs and Art try to teach her ASL, since they're fairly sure Cass is mute.

Until one day, Cass laughs, a wordless, happy sound, and they realize she _can_ speak, she just doesn't know how. They start to teach her English as well, although ASL is simpler, since Cass's vocal chords are disused. Steph shudders to think why on Earth the concept of even crying out in pain is foreign to Cass, and when she meets David Cain, she understands, and tries to fight him, and gets more bruises and a smile from Cass as thanks.

Art is oddly happy, despite how awful everything is. She delivers messages from Babs to her father, who is kind and calls her "son"; it feels good to be appreciated, even if the gender of the nickname is wrong. She spends time with Cass, who is a good friend, letting Art talk for as much and as long as she needs to. She soaks up the attention and the sense of _belonging,_and dreams that she can find this once the world rebuilds itself again. She misses Tim something awful, and her mother, but she knows they're safe, she knows that Dad can't find Mom where she is, and that makes it okay.

Cass becomes Batgirl, and Art starts wearing her Spoiler costume, to keep Cass company, and to show Gotham that its heroes haven't abandoned it.

"You wear _that_?" Babs demands, eyes wide, when she sees the purple creation for the first time.

Art shrugs, wanting to defend herself but knowing it's a shabby job, made with rejects and craft store supplies. "I made it with what I had."

Babs lets out a pained noise, and two days later, Art has a new under suit and cloak, made out of purple Kevlar, and it fits better, and it doesn't rip as easily. Art grins widely, giddy with joy, a sense of belonging.

Cass and Art swing around Gotham and fight the good fight, working together through sweat and blood and laughter. Huntress and Azrael join them, and they all fight with every ounce of energy they have, fighting for a city that is raw and broken and hurting.

Then Tim and Bruce and Dick return, and those days fade away. Art is shoved to the side; she loses her partner and her place with Babs, less necessary in a world where the Batman reigns supreme again and Babs has a network again. Cass patrols with Batman and Robin and Nightwing, and Art pretends it doesn't hurt, even though she wants to break down and cry.

"Why didn't you leave?" Tim demands, looking at her like she's a ghost, like he's afraid she'll melt away if he takes his eyes off her. She wonders what he sees—how much has No Man's Land changed her?

(She's thinner—her cheekbones more pronounced and she has a little more muscle mass; she's more confident in her fighting and her speaking; she's battered and scarred, and she believes in herself just a little more.)

"I had nowhere to go," she tells him, telling the raw, simple truth for once. "I couldn't afford to leave."

"Your mother got out!" He exclaims, spreading his hands wide. She wonders why, exactly, he thinks this is an argument.

"She couldn't have lived in No Man's Land," Art says, confused that he hasn't realized this. "The rehab center could look after her. Nowhere could look after me."

"Art—" Tim sounds pained, and Art just shook her head.

"I don't regret it," she says quietly. "I helped people. I... Tim I would have lost everything if I had left. I would have gone into foster care; I would have lost you, my mom, Gotham…"

He still doesn't understand, she can see that. But he kisses her anyway, hungry and desperate, eager to reassure himself that she's still alive. She kisses him back, pulling him closer to her height, just as overjoyed by their reunion, to be in his presence again.

"I was so worried," Tim whispers, eyes half closed as he pulls away, far too soon, but the words are wonderful to hear, so she doesn't mind.

"I'm fine," she promises, wondering how much of that is a lie. She's never been fine, not really. She's broken, cracks covering her from head to toe, threatening to fall apart at a moment's notice. Tim and Cass help her keep herself together, and she knows that's why she can't tell them the truth (yet). She doesn't trust them enough to keep caring, to stay, when they see her for who she really is. And as much as she hates lying, hates the name "Art" and the pronouns they assume for her, she fears being alone even more.

* * *

A series of videos circulate outside of Gotham, people desperately pleading to the world to understand that _people_ are still stuck in Gotham, that they are trapped and hungry and alone.

"My son is there!" Jack Drake says, pale faced and terrified. "He snuck back in to go look for friends of his."

"We couldn't afford to leave; there was no place for us to go." Crystal Brown says. Her face is prematurely aged, her blue eyes are determined and her stance is firm. "I suffered from addiction, so my little boy managed to get me into a rehabilitation center, out of Gotham. But he didn't leave. He's still in that place." Tears fill her eyes, the exact same color as Art's. "I don't even know if he's still alive."

The pleas of Jack Drake and Crystal Brown join hundreds of others, and the roar of public opinion swings, slowly but surely, in the favor of Gotham.

The path is reversed, slowly but surely. Gotham reopens, Gotham rebuilds, the people return, trickling back in to their toxic city to start over. The Bat Signal lights up the night again, and the people begin to heal. Slowly, but surely, they pull themselves back together.

"You beautiful, brave boy," Crystal Brown sweeps her child up into her arms and cries as they embrace.

"Mom," Art whispers, burying her face and trying not to sob, so overwhelmed by the solid presence of her mother, so long absent.

"I'm sorry," Crystal whispers, rocking her back and forth. "I'm so, so sorry, Arthur."

Art tenses at the name, but Crystal plows on, not noticing. "You shouldn't have had to do what you did. I… I know I haven't been the best parent. I… I know I've hurt you, and have no right to ask your forgiveness. You are nothing like your father. You are braver and kinder and your heart is infinitely bigger than his ever was. I couldn't be more proud of you."

Art feels the tears spill onto her face, and she hugs her mom as tight as she can, never wanting to let go.

* * *

After No Man's Land, she feels as if she's found stable ground for the first time. She smiles widely as she walks around. She goes on dates with Tim in the secrecy and security of the shadows, she patrols with Cass, and she spends time with Babs. Even Bruce's glares seem to become less poisonous and vicious, and she gets to see the _actual Batcave_. She tries not to squeal, and mostly succeeds.

Alfred sews up a gash on her leg, and admonishes her with a touching fondness to be more careful. It feels strange, to be a part of something.

"You're a good lad," Alfred says, smiling fondly at her, and that reminds her, as always, that she's a liar and a coward in the midst of heroes; she doesn't belong here, in this family, in this safe haven. If they knew the truth about her, they wouldn't be like this, laughing and caring about her. They'd leave her, and she'd be alone again, she's sure of this.

"I love you, Art," Tim whispers as he lays next to her on his bed, their limbs intertwined; breath heavy from kisses. "God, I love you so much."

And that's it, isn't it? He loves Art, the fake-boy who lies and smiles and lies some more, who hides behind a mask of masculinity and muscles, letting her broad shoulders and abs create assumptions about her. He doesn't love whoever she really is, fucked up and broken and confused, and most definitely a _girl_.

Telling the truth could mean losing this, and she isn't willing to lose it, even if it means living that awful, rotten lie for longer.

* * *

Mom is clean, clean for good, and Art feels like singing every time she thinks about it. She plays instead, _Moonlight Sonata_pouring out of the piano, Beethoven's sounds filling the apartment with light and beauty. A part of her dream is finally complete; she has her mother back, and everything is that much better for it.

"You play so well," Crystal says fondly, braiding Art's hair, humming along. Crystal smells of her perfume and her shampoo—orchids and vanilla—and Art loves being with her, without Dad or drugs to destroy the moments that they have together.

Crystal works two shifts, day and night, trying to make enough money to keep the apartment and food on the table, enough money to save so Art can go to college and so they can have clothes to wear and heat in the winter, and Art feels so guilty that she offers to get a job to help pick up the tab. Crystal refuses, claiming that she wants Art to focus on her school work.

Art tells her mother about Spoiler, about fighting the good fight, about stopping Dad and taking him to jail, about the bruises and the scars, the patrols and Tim, the stolen kisses and the desperate fights. The truth pours out of her like water out of a fire hydrant, and she feels strangely empty but content once it's over.

_Will telling her about who I am be like this?_ She wonders giddily as her mother hugs her, crying with joy and declaring how proud she is of her. She hopes it will be.

* * *

Everything is ruined, of course, when there's a jailbreak at Blackgate Prison, and Arthur Brown escapes, along with the majority of the other dangerous prisoners, who set out into the streets of Gotham to wreak havoc.

Art has her first fully blown panic attack at home, curled up into a ball on the carpet, breathing erratic and frantic, and her mother can't help her, because she's having one too, across the room.

"I've gotta," Art finally pants, her eyes not focusing right. She swallows, her throat dry and pushes herself onto all fours before finally, awkwardly, getting to her feet. "I gotta stop him."

"Baby no," Crystal says, eyes wide and terrified. "No, he'll kill you—"

And they both know it's true. If he realizes, if he knows, who is beneath the Spoiler mask, Arthur Brown's temper will not be held back by his previous restraints that stopped him from causing Art physical harm.

"I… he'll kill _other people_," Art cries, although she wants to hide, curl up and stay here forever, away from the danger and the threat of dad returning. But he will come back, she knows, if she doesn't stop him. He will come back, and Mom will run to the drugs again, and Art will lose Spoiler and Tim and Cass, and the hungry, dark nights in the closet will return. "I can't… I can't let him…"

"Baby, you're not responsible for him!" Crystal says, grabbing her shoulders, but she's crying too, and both of them are blaming themselves for things that were out of their control and fearing things that seem terrifyingly inevitable.

Art runs away, throws on her Spoiler costume, and throws herself into the fray without hesitating, stopping bad guys wherever Oracle tells her there are bad guys, fighting until she's out of breath and bruised and aching all over.

Gotham's streets are empty except for police—no one will risk being outside tonight, not even the street walkers and homeless people who normally fill the city with the bustle of life, even on the darkest and coldest of nights.

There's no sign of Arthur, and Art is on edge, jumping at shadows and throwing herself into fights recklessly. She has no partner tonight—everyone is partnered up, and she's left alone, on the edges, Batman growling at her to _go home_ in her ear every few minutes, which she ignores, even though she knows this is dangerous and feckless.

She fights another group of men with crowbars and tire irons, and she has just knocked out the last of them when she hears.

"Good fighting, junior."

She spins on her heel, shaking from head to toe. _He knows_.

Arthur Brown strides out of the Shadows, clad in his hideously orange Cluemaster outfit. Art tries to breathe, but it's like he's strangling her, stealing her air supply just by being near her.

_He knows he knows he knows he knows_ Art scrambles for weapons, and Dad laughs, a cruel, awful noise that she remembers all too well. "What, you going to fight your old man?"

"Screw you!" She snaps, pulling out her bo staff, despite her shaking hands.

"Now, is that any way to talk to your father?" Suddenly, he _moves_, and Art's crashed against the brick of the alley, her breath knocked out of her. She cries out in pain, and he rips off her mask and yanks her hair, pulling her to her feet again. He grabs the radio link out of her hear and crushes it beneath his boot, and she starts to realize that he's actually going to kill her.

He grins at her. "Now, Junior. You've been a very bad boy," she flinches, and he laughs again, pulling on her hair, her pride and joy, and she suddenly wants to cut it all off, wherever he's touched it.

"Leave me alone!" She yells, struggling against him, but he shakes her like a disobedient puppy and she stills on instinct, too terrified of him to fight back properly.

"Now listen here, _boy_," he says to her, brown eyes gleaming dangerously in the faint street light. "You're not in charge. You're nothing but a disobedient brat. I ought to kill you and your useless mother," he says, and something _snaps_ in Art, and she grabs the batarang in her belt and stabs his hand with it, the blade cutting right through the webbing of his forefinger and thumb, screaming obscenities at him and he drops her hair, and she _lunges_, punching and kicking him with everything she can, until he _drops._

She stops, chest rising and falling, bloody batarang still in her hand.

Arthur Brown, curled up on the ground, starts to laugh, wheezy and high pitched. "_That's_my boy," he says, and his approval makes her hate him all the more, setting her blood boiling and all she wants to do is _shut him up_. "You gonna kill me now?"

She freezes, breaking at the thought of actually crossing that line, even for him. It's the way he says it, mocking her and making her feel like a child, helpless and afraid and unable to do anything to stop him as he throws her in the closet. He laughs again, seeing her shattered expression. The noise is familiar and cruel and all she wants to do is curl up in a ball and cry until she wakes up, because this is torn directly from her nightmares. "Fuck, you're still a sissy? I woulda thought Batman woulda toughened you up like now, boy."

She stays silent, breathing heavily. His smile is mocking and she wants it to _stop_, more than anything.

He grins at her even wider, his teeth smeared with blood from her attack. "If you don't kill me, I'll come back for you, boy. Blackgate won't hold me forever—I've made _connections_, there, junior. I'll be out soon."

"I know," Art whispers. And she _does_; any thoughts otherwise—that Arthur was gone from her life forever, that she had escaped him, were just pretty delusions, now torn to pieces. He would come back, clawing his way back into her life, rip apart everything she'd built, destroying everything he touched, just like when she was a child. Her breathing sped up, and she clenched her fists so hard that her nails dug into the skin of her palms.

"Poor Crystal," Arthur sighs, and it almost sounds sincere, but Art knows that he doesn't mean it, he _can't_mean it. He's a liar, a monster, a killer, a criminal, he _can't_ care about Mom, it doesn't make sense, you can't care about someone and still be willing to kill them like that; you can't love someone and hurt them so much. He can't love—he's a monster, he's a bully, he's a _villain_. "I'll hate to kill her."

Art _knows_ he's manipulating her; he's always been too good at it, he can play her like she can play her piano, his fingers finding her weak points and hitting them perfectly, creating disastrous chords as he hits them all at once. It's why she had always needed the mask—he couldn't play Spoiler like he could Art, Spoiler was strong and unknown, belonging to a different world. But now he knows Spoiler, and all that entails, and there are even more weaknesses barred to him; and she's just stupidly grateful that Tim and Cass can protect themselves like Crystal and Steph never could.

"Let me walk out of here," Cluemaster says, and his eyes are cruel, mocking her, and it brings her back to the closet: back to the claustrophobic darkness and the terror and the loneliness and the hunger. "And I'll stay away from you and Crystal. You won't hear from me again, not unless you come after me. But I'll stay away from your mother. If you don't… there's nowhere you can hide from me. I know you better than you know yourself, Junior. There's nowhere I can't find you."

Dad had used to say that during hide and seek, back before it all had broken apart, and it was true—Arthur Senior had a knack for figuring out where Junior was hiding. Art swallows, terrified, and she believes him.

She pictures her mother, dead, blood pouring from her stomach or her mouth, her eyes glassy and _empty_, all the things that make her Crystal gone, leaving just a corpse and a grave.

Art cracks, right down the middle, just like he knew she would, damn him to hell, damn him to the _Joker_, damn him to every possible foul thing that Gotham can produce. She knows, in a moment of terrifying clarity, even as she gives in, that she will never save him; she would let him die if she was given the chance. Damn Batman, damn his rules, but she will walk away before she saves him.

What a monster he had raised, she thinks, dizzy with an all-encompassing rage. She wonders if he's proud of her, in his own, twisted way.

"Go," she says, simply, tears in her eyes and hatred (for herself, for him) in her heart.

He does, vanishing into the night and leaving her alone in the alley, alone with her thoughts and her own overfull heart.

She breathes freely again, as if his grip has been released from her throat, collapsing to the ground with a series of quiet, tearless sobs that rake her body.

She gets to her feet after a minute, unsteady. She leans against the wall for stability and breathes heavily through her nose, wiping her brow, which is damp beside the cold that grips her.

She finds the pieces of her mask and tapes them together, jamming it back on her face. There is still fighting to do tonight, despite the reeling, chaotic mess that is her heart and mind.

She goes back and stops bad guys, fighting with every inch of energy in her body, until she collapses on the couch in Oracle's Watchtower, nearly sobbing for joy as her tired feet finally leave the ground.

Cass sprawls next to her, exhausted as well, for once. She's unmarked, of course, none of the prisoners were even nearly good enough to present a challenge to her. But even Cass doesn't have limitless energy, and the night has been long. Art barely manages to text her mother before her eyes fall shut.

She dreams of her father, of the closet, of her mother, glassy eyed and stiff with death, of howled slurs through the darkness.

She wakes with tears in her eyes and aches all over her body, Cass's warm arm thrown around her and Cass's voice whispering "Art, Art," over and over again, trying to calm her down.

She cries into Cass's arms, and Cass holds her and soothes her, stroking her hair, and they fall asleep again, Art's face still wet.

She washes her face in the morning, and stumbles out of the bathroom, bleary eyed and with her hair a mess.

Babs laughs at her, and gives her coffee, and Art tries to pretend that last night didn't happen, that Arthur didn't come back and destroy the sense of safety she had created.

Art breathes slowly, and fakes it for Cass and Babs, and Cass lets her have her lies, even if she clearly knows something's wrong.

But Batman knows more than something being wrong: he knows exactly what happened.

She's asleep in her room when it happens: one minute, she's asleep, dreamless for once, the next she's awake, and Batman is in her room, cape fluttering in the breeze of her open window and focusing his furious gaze on her.

She muffles a scream, grateful she's wearing proper pajamas, and doesn't know what to think, staring at Batman like he's a monster—which he seems to be. Tim had once told her that the innocent have nothing to fear from the Batman, and maybe that's true, but it doesn't seem true, not when the aura of fear is radiating strongly and she wants to curl up into a ball and hide.

But she refuses to give him that, refuses to let him see any more of her fear, so she sets her face and holds it with all of her willpower, and asks, "What are you doing?" It's not as dignified as she would have hoped, but he's the goddamn Batman and she's just Spoiler.

Batman looms over her, radiating menace, and she doesn't know what's happening, she doesn't understand why he's _here_, in her _room_, and why he's so angry.

"You let him go," Batman thunders, his voice a growl from the pits of hell, and Art _panics,_ scrambling away from him, tossing the sheets away and scrambling to her feet. She's drenched in a cold sweat and she shakes like a leaf in a hurricane, but there's nowhere to run from the Batman; the whole city is his, drenched in his shadow and covered in his eyes. There is nowhere safe from him, and Art _sees_ that now.

"I—I—" She stutters, trying to protest, trying to lie, she always can lie, lies keep her safe, lies protect her, but they falter in her mouth and die, killed by Batman's glower.

"You _let. Him. Go_," Batman repeats, and Art oddly feels like that sentence is verdict, sentence and execution rolled into one. "You let him walk away. _Why_?" It feels unnecessary, tacked on. But Art tries to grab the opportunity to defend herself, to get rid of that glare and the feeling of terror that's settling in her stomach.

"He—he said that he'd hurt—" Art babbles, trying to push the words out of her mouth, try to _explain_ the feeling of helplessness, of terror, the knowledge that he'd win, in the end, no matter what she'd do or say, he'd win, and he kept his promises, and Mom would be dead and Art would be alone, and then he'd crawl back into her life and ruin everything even further. She tries to convey this, tries to explain it to Batman, but she can see his dissatisfaction, she can feel the label _coward_ being pressed upon her, branding her so that everyone can see it.

That's the problem with Bruce Wayne, you see. He understands the grief of losing parents, he understands the yearning for a distant parents through watching his classmates throughout his long years in boarding school. He _does_ understand physical abuse—he understands the scars it can leave on children, the trauma it can cause. But he has a problem understanding emotional manipulation as the source of trauma; he doesn't understand hating parents, no matter how bad they are. Cassandra still loves her birth father, no matter how badly he abused her. But Art _hates_ her father with every bone in her body, she hates him and fears him, and he doesn't know how to handle that—everything tells him that children should love their parents, and so it follows that Art is lying, and that makes him suspicious, convinced that Spoiler has a plot of some kind. Maybe as a spy, a double agent, an apprentice for someone. Bruce simply _cannot_ understand the situation she is in, and so he _pushes_.

"Where is he hiding?" He demands, fury rolling off him in waves and it pummels Art like a tsunami, battering at her already fragile state.

"I don't know!" She cries out, her voice high, terrified out of her wits, searching for an exit, for an _escape_, despite the futility of it.

He lunges for her and she yells out, dodging his grab for her arm by ducking and rolling, adrenaline pumping through her system as she runs for the door. There's a whirl of black fabric and then he's in front of her, blocking her exit, her forearm tight in his grasp.

"You're lying," he growls, and Art realizes with a stab of panic that Mom is gone tonight—late shift at the hospital, there's no one to help her, she's all alone in the apartment, and her breathing speeds up dangerously. He holds her like he's about to throw her towards a wall—he holds her like he holds criminals and villains, merciless and terrifying, and she knows that's all she _is_ in his mind, and it hurts as much as his grip on her arm.

"I'm not," she begs, eyes full of tears. She's on the edge of breaking, shattering into a thousand pieces, but Batman either doesn't see or care, because his grip remains firm and his face might as well be carved out of stone for all the emotion it carries. "I'm not lying, he didn't tell me, _please_," she begs, desperate and scared, unable to flee, unwilling to fight, full of adrenaline and tears.

"If I find out you ever help him again," he hisses, "You're _finished_, boy." He drops her arm and vanishes into the night, leaving her window open.

She collapses again, letting her tears flow freely. She looks around her room, and she realizes, with a jolt in her stomach, that she's not safe here. There is nowhere safe. There is nowhere she can hide, not from Batman, not from Cluemaster. Gotham is Batman's world, and Cluemaster knows her inside and out, her ticks, her fears.

They'll find her secrets, she realizes, staring blankly at the wall, her sobs finally fading away. They'll find out about Tim, about her being a girl. She doesn't know what they'll do—no, that's a lie. She knows what Cluemaster will do. Prison has hardened him, solidified him from a weak but vicious man into a man with no morals, no compunctions. He kills with ease, and his eyes have even less kindness than she remembers from her childhood. Cluemaster would kill her if he ever learns her secrets. Batman… she doesn't know what he'd do, but she's terrified to find out.

_Piano_, she thinks numbly, stumbling to her feet. She needs music, she needs to concentrate on something else; she needs to lose herself, to calm herself. She puts a kettle of water on the stove and then flings herself down onto the bench, playing the first piece that comes to mind.

_Für Elise _pours out of her fingers, the highs and lows carrying away her worries, her fears. The tension slowly flows away as she plays the song, her eyes drifting shut and her breathing evening out. She hadn't even bothered with the lights, so she plays in the dark, playing every song she's ever learned until the sun rises and her fingers are numb.

* * *

"I was going to call you Stephanie, if you were a girl," Crystal says one day, tired after a long night shift. Art is tired too, a long night of patrol keeping her busy. "I was _so sure_you were. Arthur, of course, was sure you were a boy. He could hardly imagine having a daughter. But I was _so sure_. Stephanie Crystal Brown." She stared into the depths of her coffee mug.

Art feels her heart in her throat. _Stephanie Brown_. The name _fits_. It clings to her, desperate and true, and nothing has ever sounded as beautiful as the sound of that name in her ears. She knows, then, that it's _her_name. When she gets the courage, when she sheds her skin and leaves the dreaded _Arthur Brown Jr._behind, she is going to be Stephanie Brown, daughter of Crystal Brown.

It's then that she switches away from Art in her head. She leaves it behind, mentally, even if she answers to it still. But Stephanie smiles at her mother, feeling oddly warm and delighted.

But of course, the moment ends. "Don't think I'd change you though," Mom says, taking Steph's hand. "I love you just as you are, my beautiful, brave son. A _hero_. I couldn't be more proud of you."

Steph swallows the lump in her throat, and hates everything. But she smiles anyway.

* * *

She finds a security camera in her apartment, and the world crashes again. She rips apart her home, searching for more bugs, and she finds them alright—small, familiar devices, that she knows originate in the Batcave. She runs to the shower and turns it on, playing classical music on the radio as loud as possible without disturbing the neighbors while she breaks down, praying that there's no cameras in the bathroom, that he left her that much.

She has a brown paper bag in the bathroom, and she uses it, breathing into it heavily and trying to steady herself, to soothe her nerves and calm her frantic brain. The music playing on the radio is wrong—too much drumming ruining the soothing sound of the piano, so she tries desperately to start the tape of Mozart piano solos Mom bought her when she was five. Her hands shake so much she nearly breaks the radio, but eventually it starts and the music calms her down. She stops the shower and draws a bath, curling up in overly warm water until her skin turns pink and her fingers are prunes, and then she forces herself to leave the bathroom and act like everything is normal.

It doesn't occur to her to tell anyone about the cameras, about the listening devices. She knows Bruce put them there, and so she assumes the others would be fine with it, that they'd agree with him—she is not to be trusted, not after letting Cluemaster free.

It hurts, to lose their trust, but at least she can go to Tim as Art, study with him and lose herself in his kisses, forget about her lack of privacy and her hatred of her body, her hatred of herself. She can let herself be Tim Drake's adoring boyfriend, who is adored in turn, and it feels good to be wanted, to be needed. She curls up with him, his heat sinking into her body, and she feels safe. She loves him, and it's exhilarating; he loves her, and it's safe.

She patrols with Cass, who still has smiles for her, and questions for her. Steph helps her with ASL and spoken English, helps her learn to read, enough to get by. She finds her old Walkman, which she sometimes used to listen to her piano tapes, and then the books-on-tape collection from her childhood, and listens to them with Cass.

They listen to _Children of Green Knowe_ and _Freddy Goes to Florida_, and then Steph goes to the library and finds Tamora Pierce on tape, and the two of them start to go through her entire works, listening to it on patrol and when they just spend time together at Cass's apartment, sprawled on Cass's mattress on the floor and listening to the adventures of Alanna, Daine, and Keladry. Cass drinks it in, and as the chapters wear on, she has to ask for less and less of the words to be defined, and that makes Cass happy, so Steph drinks it all in with her, and lets Cass braid her hair, which now falls past her shoulders, longer than Cass's or Babs.

Steph helps Cass pierce her ears, much to Bruce's horror and Babs' amusement. Cass only wears plain gold studs, much to Steph's own disappointment. Boy earrings are boring, compared to girl earrings, and part of Steph wants to live vicariously through Cass.

Bruce glares at her whenever he sees her and Cass together, and she realizes, with a jolt, that he probably believes she has _intentions_ towards his daughter, and not towards his Robin. She crawls through Tim's window that night and kisses him silly, leaving him gasping for breath and dark eyed with _want_ before slipping out again, laughing at him.

She searches the bathroom when she gets home again, but Batman has still left her this much. She closes the door tightly and runs the bath, and stuffs towels under her shirt, trying to imagine what she'd look like with breasts.

The bathroom and Cass and Tim's places are her small safety zones in the world—and even Cass's place is not too safe, she'd be damned if Batman doesn't have it bugged as well, but she can pretend at least, there.

Halloween comes and Steph convinces Tim and Cass to go trick-or-treating. Tim goes as Superman, much to Bruce's consternation. Cass, confused, dresses at Batman, and for a moment, Steph is convinced she's actually going to go out in her own costume, which, although it would be hilarious, would probably end with Bruce Wayne having an apoplexy, so her showing up in a Batman costume (doubtlessly sewn by Alfred, since Cass cannot sew _at all_) was a great relief. That leaves Steph with Wonder Woman and she hides the thrill she feels, having the excuse to borrow a bra from her mother and stuff it with beanbags. She puts her hair in a black wig and wears makeup and when she looks at herself in the mirror, she almost sees a _girl_. She's delirious with joy the whole night, laughing and dragging Tim and Cass all over the city, getting candy and cheap pencils and apples. People actually call her by the right pronouns all night, and even though Tim corrects them, it's a thousand times better than the other way around.

Of course, it ends, and it's painful to go back to being Art after that. She nearly breaks the mirror in the bathroom in the morning, and she is quiet all day, not meeting people in the eye.

She thinks about how right it felt, to be a girl, even just for the night.

She thinks about losing Tim and Cass.

She looks in the mirror.

She swallows, hard.

She goes to the library.

* * *

She starts to go to the library every week, half paranoid that Bruce is watching her, so she forces it into a part of her routine, so he won't look too closely. She checks out innocuous books—fantasy and science fiction, books on tape to listen to with Cass, a few history books.

But after two months, she starts to search for books on people like _her_. She finds them, half-hidden in the back, in a section called "resources", filled with books about handling depression and coming out and non-conforming sexualities and genders. She hides in there for half an hour at a time, reading through them frantically, searching for answers to her questions that she's ignored since Marcie.

She goes to the computers when she's done, and looks for the community in Gotham. She is unsurprised, but saddened, by the fact that Gotham is considered one of the most unfriendly cities to the Trans community, as well as the LGBTQ community as a whole. Steph swallows, but keeps looking. She looks into the surgery, she looks into hormones, she looks into voice training and tucking and silicone filled bras.

Steph reads testimonials and stories, she reads about trans girls of color, lesbian trans girls, bisexual trans girls, she reads about the imprisonment rates and the suicide rates and the homicide rates, and she thinks about Arthur Brown, and she swallows and flees the library for the day.

She returns, though, and she reads the coming out stories again and again. She stares at the pictures from Halloween, and remembers how it felt so _right_ to be like that.

_I can do this_, she thinks, and she forces herself to print out a pamphlet, her hands shaking as she folds the black-and-white creation. It's simple and to-the-point, explaining the basics of what a transgender person is, and Steph swallows, her throat tight.

* * *

**SENT TEXT MESSAGE**

**to: Tim**

**hey, mind if i come over tonight?**

**NEW TEXT MESSAGE**

**from: Tim**

**sure thing! dad and dana aren't home tonight! ;)**

**SENT TEXT MESSAGE**

**to: Tim**

**oh god you're such a dork you're so adorable xoxoxo**

* * *

Steph shows up to Tim's house like everything is normal, even though the pamphlet in her bag might as well be on fire, she's so aware of it.

She knocks on the door and holds her breath as she waits for someone to answer.

The door opens, and Jack Drake opens the door. He glares at her, hostility coming off him in waves, and Steph blinks, shocked. Not only had Tim said that Jack wouldn't be home, but even then, Jack had never been anything but friendly and amicable towards her.

"Is something wrong?" She asks, blinking. "Is Tim home?"

"Go away," Jack says, a scowl on his face.

"I'm supposed to study with Tim today," she tries to say, but he cuts her off with a disbelieiving laugh.

"Studying? _Sure_. _That's_ what you've been doing, all those times."

Steph freezes, realizing that Jack must have figured out about her and Tim. She bristles at the implication, however. Tim hasn't brought up sex, and Steph is incredibly grateful for that. She's doesn't _want_to use her (unfortunately male) body for that purpose; she doesn't want to even _think_ about that.

"Mr. Drake," she tries to say, a sinking feeling in her chest.

"Get out!" He snaps. "Get away from here, and get your damned influence out of my son's life! You're not welcome here anymore!"

Steph stumbles back, hurt. She'd always thought that Jack was on the more progressive side of Gotham's elite—but she supposed Tim had his own reasons for staying in the closet. She opens her mouth, trying to protest, but Jack Drake slams the door in her face, shaking the door frame with the force of it.

Steph stares at the door, unsure of what to do.

She then runs around the back and climbs up to Tim's room, hoping he's in there alone, because she needs to understand what is happening, why this is happening.

Tim is alone in his room; his laptop and phone are nowhere to be seen, and he's sitting on his bed, head bent, staring blankly at something. She knocks on the window, kneeling on the window sill. He looks up at her, and he looks shocked.

"What are you doing here?" He hisses, opening the window but not letting her in, blocking her with his body. "If my dad catches you…"

"What happened?" Steph demands, not caring. "You're dad…"

"He looked at my phone and saw our texts," Tim says, looking down, ashamed. "He… he jumped to conclusions."

"I'll say he _sky dived_," Steph says, gripping the window frame tightly. "Can't you just explain…?"

"I'll try when he calms down," Tim says, shrugging helplessly. "But… he doesn't want me to see you anymore."

"So?" Steph says. "Even if I can't come here, we still have Spoiler and Robin…" Tim looks down again. "Don't we?" She hates how small her voice sounds, and she realizes, with a bolt of pure terror, what Tim is about to say before he says it.

"I… I don't think I want to, Art," Tim says. "I hate lying to my dad… I… I don't think… I don't think I want to do this anymore."

Steph's grip loosens on the frame, nearly causing her to fall off. She swallows, shock barely registering as the world gets _quieter_, as if her ears have been stuffed with cotton. The pamphlet in her bag is somehow no longer important. (He lies to his dad all the _time_, it's not like lying about her would be any more ridiculous; he doesn't want her, she's not good enough, she's…)

"Okay," she says, her voice incredibly tiny, incredibly vulnerable, incredibly _broken_. "Okay… okay, uh… I'll just… go?"

Tim doesn't say anything. He closes the window, narrowly missing her fingers, and turns away from her.

Steph stumbles down the roof, and makes it to the edge of the Drake property before she collapses, sobs filling the air as she breaks down, her heart split in two.

She's not sure how long she stays there, but she's freezing by the time she gets up. She needs someone, anyone, to talk to, to hold her…

She runs to Cass's place, tears streaming down her face.

* * *

Cass isn't home. The doors are locked and Steph's passcode doesn't work, and Cass doesn't answer when Steph calls her or knocks.

_Patrol_, she thinks numbly. _She… she_**_must_**_be on patrol_.

She goes to Babs then, because at least Babs will be understanding, even if she's not as good as her best friend, at least she'll understand more than Mom or… anyone else, really.

It begins to rain as she runs to the Clocktower, and Steph hates everything thematically appropriate about it, even if it's only a cold drizzle instead of a thunderstorm.

She's shaking from the cold and from tears by the time she makes her way to Barbara's doorstep, and she rings the bell with unsteady hands.

No one answers.

_I was going to tell him_, she thinks, nauseas and terrified and sick with the twisting emotions in her stomach. _I was going to stop lying, I was going to be free…_

She curls up inside the doorframe, leaning against the wall and pulling up the hood of her loose-fitting sweater for warmth, even though it, like the rest of her, is soaked from the rain, and cries until she feels like there is nothing left in her.

"Are you okay, miss?" Steph looks up, blinking water out of her eyes—she's not sure if it's rain or tears at this point—as she peers up. It's a police officer—a Latina woman who is carrying an umbrella and frowning, concerned.

"I'm… I'm fine," Steph whispers, but a sob breaks her sentence, so she's sure the officer doesn't believe her.

"Is Barbara not home?" The woman looks concerned, her brow furrowed and her lips pressed together.

"She's… she's not answering," Steph hedges, unwilling to admit anything to this strange woman, even if she is a police officer. "But I don't know…"

"She's probably not," the officer says with a sigh. "The commissioner asked me to check on her; said she hadn't answered the phone, and he wanted to know if she was still in town, or if she'd taken off again without telling him."

Steph shrugs, helplessly. "She didn't tell me, either," she says, voice painfully thin and wavering.

"You a friend of hers?" The officer sits down next to her, raising her umbrella to protect Steph from the rain as well. She's pretty, with striking features and intelligent brown eyes framed by thick lashes and strong eyebrows. Her hair is thick and black, pulled into a ponytail at the base of her neck.

Steph nods, "More of Cass's—do you know Cass?"

She laughs. "If you know Barbara, you know Cass. Sweet kid. What's your name, girl?"

_Girl_. Something sweeps through Steph, calming the riot that's happening in her chest, and calms her down, wrapping around her like a warm blanket. _She thinks I'm a girl_! Steph nearly bursts into thankful tears. She tells the truth, for the first time in her life, when someone asks her for her name, and it feels _wonderful_. "Steph," she says, swallowing.

"C'mon," the officer says, laying a hand on Steph's arm, heavy and comforting. "You need to get out of this storm. I'm Renee, by the way. Renee Montoya."

Steph remembers her, with a jolt—Renee, the police woman who had helped with Two-Face, who had given Spoiler and Batgirl tea the night Sarah Gordon died. She'd forgotten—No Man's Land seemed so long ago, now.

"Thanks," she whispers, as Renee drapes her heavy and warm jacket over her, and leads her, under the umbrella, to a nearby apartment building.

"Commissioner sometimes asks me to check on Babs since I live so close by," Renee explains, shuffling Steph into the elevator. Steph drips onto the floor, feeling akin to a drowned cat, and probably resembling one. "I know Babs—we went to Gotham University together, back in the day. I was a junior when she was a fresher, and she helped me get into the force."

Steph nods, understanding, still too numb to care why Renee is taking a stranger to her home.

Renee lends her dry clothes and makes tea—a fruity blend with honey that Steph is grateful for, even if she usually prefers simpler flavors and sugar instead of honey.

"Bad breakup?" Renee asks, looking at Steph with eyes that see too much.

Renee always seems to know how to ask just the right question at the right time. It's a gift of hers.

"Yeah," Steph whispers, sipping from the piping hot cup. The heat is calming, and she feels better already—or maybe it's just how Renee keeps calling her "Steph", the name curling around her like a security blanket. "He… he broke up with me and he said it's because of his dad, but I…"

Renee touches her hand, smiling. "I've been there," she laughs. "My first girlfriend… well, that was an adventure. Don't do what I did though. Getting piss-drunk alone in your apartment only invites alcohol poisoning. Thank god Harvey found me when he did, or I might not be here today."

Steph nods. "I… I just needed to talk, but Cass wasn't there and Babs wasn't there, and Mom doesn't understand…"

Renee nods, understanding. "Don't worry about it. Do you want to call her? You can stay the night here, if you want."

Steph stares at Renee, so casually offering her a place to stay, even when she knows nothing about her. Surely she's noticed Steph's flat chest by this point, but she hasn't said anything, but Renee is so perceptive that Steph can't imagine she hasn't seen…

"Why?" Steph asks, quietly.

"Because you need someone right now," Renee says quietly. "And I've got a feeling you don't have anyone else at the moment."

Steph nods, a quick jerk, thankful. She declines to call her mom though—she's stayed out all night before; Mom will just think she's on patrol.

Renee puts sheets and a blanket on the couch and Steph curls up there, falling asleep within moments, comforted by the sounds of Renee using her proper name and the rain on the rooftops.

She goes back home the next day, and Crystal looks at her puffy eyes and pale face and asks no questions.

* * *

The weeks go by, and Cass doesn't come back. Steph can't figure out where she and Babs are supposed to be—no one is talking to her at the moment, and that's terrifying. Helena and the Birds are out of town, and they even took Catwoman with them, so there's no comfort from that. Tim still is out there—being grounded has never stopped him from being Robin, and it's not about to start now. He avoids Steph and she feels grateful that he is giving her this space, but she also feels terribly alone.

Batman is still there, however, and he _looms_ nearby, his presence inescapable, but he doesn't _say_ anything.

She runs her patrols and gets battered and bruised and cut, but the Cave is sealed to her now, her codes not working and no one answering when she knocks, so she goes home and stitches herself up in the quiet of her room, biting on her sheets to keep herself from screaming and waking her mother. She does her own laundry, washing the bloodstains out of her cloak and the sheets not to worry Crystal, but the strain takes its toll on her, and she feels constantly on the verge of collapse or bursting into tears—or maybe both.

She can _feel_ Batman's disapproval every time she goes outside—and she sees him constantly on patrol, just far away enough so she can't speak to him, but close enough to keep an eye on her. She wants to scream at him, to tell him that she didn't _corrupt_his little Robin.

She's on edge, shaking and trembling and running into the bathroom to hide from Bruce's gaze—she searches the bathroom every day, not believing that she's really safe even in there. She doesn't know why Bruce can't just leave her _alone_. She hasn't done anything wrong, not since Cluemaster, and her father hasn't spoken to her since that dreadful night.

She finally loses her temper, and rips out the cameras and the listening devices and takes them to the Batcave and throws them at the barricade that is still there, barring her from the Cave, and makes obscene gestures at the security camera before going off to patrol.

There's a beautiful five day period in which Steph can relax, closing her eyes and not feeling like her skin is covered in ants, and like she can't even _breathe_ without Bruce Wayne knowing.

But then the cameras are back, and the listening devices too, and Steph has another panic attack in the bathroom, because she can't tell how Batman got in, and this time there are more of them, and although the bathroom is still clean, the cameras are closer to the door, a message not to remove them again.

She throws up until there is nothing left in her stomach, tears in her eyes and face pale, and then she goes out and pretends everything is find to her mother. She doesn't want her mom to know about the cameras—about Batman's eyes watching her every move, ensuring that she isn't a threat. She smiles and laughs and _prays_ for the day that Bruce realizes she isn't like her father, that she is on his side, and he'll finally trust her.

* * *

Cass comes back, after three months of working with the Birds of Prey and hunting her mother, and Steph hugs Cass tightly and tries to patrol with her, but Bruce wants to patrol with her, and Cass longs and _needs_ Bruce's attention, so Steph closes her mouth and continues to work alone.

She looks in the mirror one day, and it's just too much—the image looking back at her is hateful and ugly and _male_, and she covers it up with a towel (she nearly breaks it with her toothbrush, but she stops herself just in time), refusing to look at herself any more—the long hair doesn't help anymore, it's all too painful to look at.

Dysphoria, the books call it, but that doesn't even begin to describe the feeling she feels—that everything in the world is wrong and nothing fits, and _she_ doesn't fit, and she curls up in the bathroom and cries, hating everything.

She misses being able to go to Tim; to be able to be _loved_ for her body, even if it was the wrong, awful body that she was given by whatever cruel god existed. She misses running alongside Cass, racing her across rooftops and teaching her sign language and almost being _honest_ with somebody for once. She hates her flat chest—she hates the bulge in her pants that she never wants to think about—she hates her broad shoulders and her awfully _boyish_face. She hates everything and she wants nothing more than it to be _over_, to be able to change every last thing about herself and to be _herself_.

She bites down on her screams, not wanting the listening devices to pick up on her anguish; she doesn't want Bruce to see her like this. He doesn't get to see this side of her. He gets smiling Art, he gets determined Art, he gets scared Art, he can even get lonely and angry Art, but he does _not_ get this. She refuses to give him that.

She scrunches up the bathmat in her fist and slumps on the floor, exhausted. She closes her eyes and just lays there, too tired to move.

* * *

The next day she sees the newspaper image of Robin kissing Superboy on the front cover of _The Daily Planet_, and her heart breaks again.

She races across the rooftops alone, losing herself in the simple pace of her feet and the wind on her face. The cape fluttering in the wind is the only thing that ruins the illusion that she's back in cross country, back when things were simpler and no one was allowed into her heart to hurt her like this.

She wishes she could stop _caring_, wishes she could cut out her heart if that meant she never had to feel like this ever again. She doesn't cry this time, she just runs until her feet feel like they will fall off and she feels numb.

She half thinks that someone—_anyone_—will care enough to come check on her; to realize that she'd be hurt by this, but no one does. So she swallows her pride and calls Cass again, only to learn that Cass is with the Teen Titans this week; she's with Tim and Kon and has said nothing, given Steph no warning. So she sits in her apartment, alone, wishing Mom would come home from work and hug her until everything was better, just like when she was a kid.

* * *

The weeks that follow are agonizing. Everything is a blur of heartache and dysphoria, of loneliness and bitterness, of hoping that she can find a way out of this, despite all the evidence she sees that she's trapped in this body, trapped in this name, trapped in this city.

And then?

Jack Drake finds out Tim's other secret.

Tim is grounded again—and he's no longer Robin.

Steph doesn't know what to do, doesn't know what to say. She's been isolated from the others lately—she hasn't tried to see if she can get into the Batcave lately, although she's fairly sure Bruce has stopped hating her for her sexuality and daring to date his Robin.

She waits for a week, deliberating what she should do. If Tim is out of the game, that means that Bruce might need more help, right? A selfish part of her screams at her to go—she can find acceptance, find _family_, find _something_. It has to be better than loneliness and solo patrols, better than locking herself in the bathroom and crying.

So she finally goes to the Batcave, wary and tense.

Her code works, and she tries to hide her surprise and joy.

Cass is nowhere to be seen, and Steph misses her. Cass is always too busy for her lately, but at least she's also too busy to be in the cave.

"Arthur," Bruce always says her full name—refuses to use the better appellation, the one that feels less painful. She grits her teeth and doesn't react, even though she wants to. She _hates_ that about Bruce—even Alfred's _Master Brown_ is less painful than the way he says her full name—the only person worse than him is her father. The two men she fears the most in the world, and she has armed them with a weapon that hurts her more than almost anything else.

She grins at him, wiping away her irritation with an easy smile. "Hey boss-man! So, I hear Timmy's out of the game for now, so I was wondering if I could, like, start patrolling with Cass again, since she's gonna be partnerless?"

Bruce narrows his eyes at her, and she resolutely _doesn't_ shrink under his gaze, just broadens her smile and locks away anything else. _Please please please give me this, I can do good, I can_**_help_**_._

Something flickers in his gaze, calculating and logical, and Steph nearly outright flinches, because it reminds her of Dad for an awful moment, and she tries to stuff that feeling away, bury it before Bruce can see.

"I believe you can help…" Bruce says, after a long moment, and Steph stares at him, slack jawed.

"Really?" She can't keep the hope, the joy out of her voice. _I can belong again I won't be an outsider again yesyesyesyes_.

She doesn't know what she expects—maybe an offer of training, patrol with him or Cass maybe, but what he offers her instead…

Every child in Gotham City has dreamed of being Robin. Every child dreams of donning the cape and mask, of being Batman's partner. Robin is a Teen Titan, a member of Young Justice, Batman's partner, the people's friend, a force for _good_.

Steph clutches at the offered costume, and stares at it, and thinks, giddy, _he doesn't think I'm a villain, he thinks I'm a hero, he thinks I can do this_, and she smiles so widely she thinks it will hurt.

Robin _belongs_, Robin is a member of the _family_; not the outsider, not the loner, but a part of something bigger.

She takes the uniform with dizzying joy and goes home and plays _River Flows in You,_ the complicated piece bursting with her emotions.

She puts on the uniform, and she looks in the mirror for the first time in three weeks, and for once, the visage she sees isn't entirely horrible—sure, it's a boy looking out at her, but it's _Robin_, and the implications of that almost make up for everything else.

* * *

"You need to cut your hair," Bruce tells her, after a grueling training session that leaves her sweaty and aching.

She tries to argue, but he shakes his head, levelling a glare at her. "It's a target," he says grimly. "It's a handhold, it's a grip."

She swallows her protests—it's her luxury, it's her safety, it's what grounds her—and thinks about belonging, about being Robin, of patrolling by his side, of being trusted and cared for, and goes home.

She cuts her hair in the bathtub, playing her Mozart tapes, the mirror securely hidden away. She forces herself to look just to make sure it looks presentable—it doesn't, it looks awful and messy and _boyish_. She goes to Babs, who evens it out, and congratulates her with a small, sad smile.

"I thought you loved your hair!" Crystal cries, when she sees Steph's shorn locks.

"I do," she says, eating breakfast quietly, resolutely. "But I'm Robin now. I've got to look like it."

Crystal hugs her tightly after she hears that. "I'm so proud of you," she says, pressing Art's face against her shoulder. "You are going to be _wonderful_."

* * *

She is Robin, and it is _wonderful_. She swings across rooftops and fights alongside Batman. She patrols with Cass, and goes to her apartment again, and they continue listening to Tamora Pierce, as if they never stopped. She personalizes her costume, adding a little more red and yellow to the legs, and changing the contents of the belts and the lining of the cape.

She _belongs_; Alfred smiles at her fondly, and people on the street are overjoyed to see her. Children are ecstatic whenever she speaks to them—no more confusion about who Spoiler is, no more glares as parents shuffle their children away from her. Being Robin _fits_, it feels so beautifully right, that it almost takes away the daily blows of her dysphoria.

She is Robin, and being Robin gives her magic.

* * *

There is a knock on her door. She opens it, wondering who it could be, and freezes on the spot.

Jack Drake stands there, awkward and pained looking, wearing clothes that almost blend in Crime Alley, but are still clearly expensive and nice.

"Arthur, right?" He blurts, looking embarrassed.

"Art," she says, on autopilot, utterly bewildered by his presence in her hallway.

There is a long, awful pause, and then he finally asks, "Can I come in?"

She blinks, "Oh, right. Yes!" She tries to ignore the irony of him throwing her out of his house and asking to be invited in to hers—that wound still hurts, both the homophobia and the follow-up rejection and broken-heart.

He looks around her apartment, and she feels her hackles rise, since how _dare_ he judge her about this, about how she lives, about their class. But he says nothing, so she forces herself to keep calm, even though she refuses to smile for him. She wonders if Bruce is watching this, and what he thinks.

"Look," Jack says, finally. "This… this isn't an easy thing to say. But… but I know our last encounter was…" he trails off, unsure of how to continue.

"Rude? Cruel? Homophobic?" Steph suggests, her tone acidic, but can you _blame her_?

He flinches. "I didn't mean—" He begins. "Uh, not because you're a boy. It's just that, you're both so young—"

"You expect me to believe that you'd react the same if it had been a girl?" Steph lets her skepticism leak into her voice.

Jack has the decency to look ashamed. "I didn't _mean_ it to be like that," he defends himself.

"That's not how it felt, Mister Drake," Steph says coldly. "Is there a point to this? I have patrol tonight."

"Right, patrol," he coughs, smoothing his hair. "You're one of the costumes, right? One of Tim's… hero friends?"

Steph's lips thin. "That's right," she says, even if she wants to distance herself from Tim Drake. She's hardly his friend—he hasn't spoken to her since that painful day for more than a few seconds.

He sighs, slumping as he stands. "Look, I realize I reacted poorly—both to finding out about you and Tim, and about Tim being Robin. I… I was wrong. I'm sorry for causing you pain. I talked to your father—"

The world grinds to a halt. Steph thinks she hears tires screech to a halt, or maybe a record scratching. She feels like she's been punched in the stomach, all her air expelled in an instant, replaced with pure, unadulterated terror. "You did?" She asks, gripping the countertop to keep herself upright and her hands from shaking.

"Yes. I called him up; a friend of mine had his number. I explained the situation to him—he seems to be a sensible man, your father."

"Uh-huh," Steph whispers, her brain spinning in fear, scrambling to keep up with what Jack is saying, even if she's not really processing it.

"And he gave me your address, so I could apologize in person." Jack shifts again. "And, I un-grounded Tim. So he'll be back as Robin soon enough—what did you see your hero name was? Do you patrol with him?"

It's like he pulled the ground out from under her—suddenly, everything good evaporates from her life just like _that_. No more Robin. No more belonging. No more training with Bruce, no more lazy afternoons with Cass, no more riding in the Batmobile, giddy despite her short hair and masculine costume. An empty feeling opens up, and all she wants is to be _alone_.

"Spoiler," she says, to answer his question—because that's all she's going to be, isn't it? She is going to be Spoiler; she won't be Robin anymore. There's no way Bruce would turn down Tim in favor of her; he's made his opinion of her abilities completely clear.

"I need to go, Mister Drake," she says quietly. "Do you mind?"

"Not at all," he says, heading for the door. "I'll see you around, perhaps?"

"Maybe," she says, not really focusing on him.

The door closes, and she falls apart again.

* * *

She sees Tim as Robin that night; Bruce doesn't contact her.

She stuffs her Robin costume beneath the bed, out of sight, not even caring if Bruce sees her. She punches the wall and cries, lost between misery and rage. She's so _lost_—where are the answers? Is there anyone even like her, so she can ask for advice?

There's no one, of course. She's alone.

Steph folds down on herself, trying to resign herself back to the life of loneliness and solo patrols; of stitching herself back together in her room with bloodstained sheets and a sterilized needle.

Then she remembers the hard drive Bruce gave her—she was supposed to give it to Oracle, when she visited before patrol—she'd been about to head over before Jack Drake ruined her life (_Arthur knew, Arthur knew, Arthur knew, Arthur_**_knew_**).

She knows it had plans… for what, she doesn't know.

She goes to look.

* * *

She waits a long, awful week.

Bruce does not call.

Cass does not call.

Tim does not call.

Babs does not call.

She makes up her mind, and begins.

* * *

Gotham _explodes_ by her hand; it falls to pieces, the gangs fighting and destroying everything, ripping each other apart and anyone else within reach. The violence spills out into the streets, into the schools, into the homes of the wealthy elite; there is nowhere safe from the violence of this disastrous gang war that Steph has unleashed. She tries to stop it, throwing herself at the problem with everything she has, but nothing seems to _work_.

She ends up with glass in her throat, and she collapses on the ground, bleeding out, and she hears her attacker's voice in her head: _"A gift from your daddy, f****t_."

Cass finds her, and takes her to the Cave, and Steph runs before Bruce can come back, afraid of what he'd have to say, of what he'd _do_. There's a message on her cell phone and she forces herself to listen to it.

It's Bruce, and he yells at her, furious with her, telling her everything she knows already—she's a failure, she fucked up, people are _dying_ because of her—and she cries. She changes into her spare cape and goes out again, still hoping she can make this right.

* * *

Art disappears after leaving the Batcave. Crystal reports that he went home—he was upset and scared, she says, and babbling about "fixing things".

Cass tries to search for him; but the trail is lost in the rioting streets, full of violence and gunshots and mobsters fighting for thrones that mean _nothing_.

People die, and Cass screams in fury and runs people to hospitals and response teams and throws herself in front of guns and knives to protect innocents and criminals alike. She drags people to jail, to the precinct, and she drinks coffee after coffee, still searching for Art the whole time.

Bruce says this is Art's fault—he used a plan of Bruce's, to stop gang violence, but he didn't know that the plan hinged on Bruce being present when the meeting was called; he didn't know about Matches Malone. Cass doesn't get _why_ Art would do that, why Art would risk doing something without telling anyone. Art had been more confident, calmer, _happier_, lately. Why had he ruined everything by doing this?

Selina Kyle calls Cass that she saw Art two days ago—only a few hours after he left his home. Cass asks her if he said why he would do this.

"He wasn't Robin anymore," Selina says, having forced Cass onto a couch, insisting that she needs a powernap at the very least before she goes out again ([_mothering, worry, concern_], Selina's body language reads). "He thought that meant there wasn't a place for him."

"He has a place!" Cass insists, wounded that Art would doubt her like that. "He's my friend, he belongs with us!"

Selina looks at her, frowning. "Sometimes people don't see clearly when they're lonely and lost," she says [_disapproving, worried_]. "Did you spend much time with him right before he was Robin? Did Bruce train him before he was Robin? Did he patrol with you?"

Cass freezes; she'd been so busy—Cain had returned and was killing again, and she hadn't wanted Art involved… for two months.

_Months_.

"He lost Robin," Cass whispers, finally _seeing_. "He thought…"

"Words mean a lot to a kid like Art," Selina says, eyes terribly sad and her body language saying [_not again, not_**_another_**_one, I'm failing another one]_. "Problem is, you and Bruce are both more about actions than words. Art thinks he's not needed. So he tried to change that."

Cass squeezes her eyes shut, remembering the destruction in the city, about the deaths and the injuries and the crying people. She thinks about Art, desperate and angry and bleeding on the ground, shaking from head to toe with fear that Cass couldn't place.

Cass sleeps fitfully for a few hours before leaving.

Helena finds her next—her frizzy hair is caked with blood and her dark skin is littered with bruises. "Orpheus and Onyx are fighting in Midtown," Helena says, blunt and to the point. "Onyx sent me a message."

"What is it?" Cass asks, wondering where the nearest place to get coffee it.

"There's a rumor that Black Mask captured a cape," Helena says, [_fear, concern, worry_] radiating from her.

Cass freezes on the spot. "Art," she whispers, feeling cold.

"Maybe," Helena says, shifting [_could I have stopped him, could I have helped him_]. "Everyone else is accounted for…"

"Only a rumor though?" Cass tries to hope.

"Yeah," Helena says, clasping Cass's shoulder with her hand. "It's only a rumor. I'm sure Art's fine…"

* * *

Steph's wrists are pulled above her head, so tight that she feels like her shoulders will be pulled from their sockets. The Black Mask stands before her, examining the table of various objects.

She's in a small room—seven by seven by seven, if she had to guess. The walls are whitewashed cinderblocks, the floor is concrete, with a drain in the center that she's standing on, even if it's stopped up at the moment. The room is well lit, fluorescent lights illuminating everything with painful detail.

Her eyes are dulled with pain, and blood trickles from her mouth. Her earrings have been yanked out, and they lie, bleeding, at her feet.

She's given up nothing. _They'll find me_, she thinks, breathing heavily through her nose, trying to calm herself while Black Mask tries to rile her up by taking his time, picking up one instrument and putting it down. _They'll find me_.

She wonders, vaguely, what question he will ask her this time. He's mostly wanted plans, which she couldn't give him—except this awful War Game, but she's claimed that Batman's plan there failed completely—she picks a mobster she knew was dead and claimed he was Batman's only hope, hoping to protect Orpheus and _maybe_ give Batman a chance to fix this mess.

"Alright," Black Mask says, and her heart spikes as she sees him holding a cordless drill. "Now, you're gonna tell me who the Batman is, and I'll let you go home to your daddy. He's offering a pretty reward on whoever can get you to him, but I figure I'll just see if he'd like to join up with me."

Steph has prepared for this question. She knows what she has to do.

"Who is the Batman?" Black Masks demands, stepping closer to her.

She swallows her fear, and thinks _Cass, please find me_. "Your mother!" She grins, blood on her teeth and terror in her heart.

The Black Mask snarls, and his retaliation makes her scream.

"Who is the Batman?" He yells once she stops, her blood spilling onto the ground.

"Lex Luthor," she spits out.

She screams until her throat is raw, and he laughs at her, yanking on her too-short hair and calling her "fairy" and "pretty boy".

"Who's Batman?" He pulls on her hair until she thinks her scalp will come out, and she cries out in pain before gritting out, "Oliver Queen!"

"Harvey Dent!" is her next choice.

"Christian Bale!"

"Lucius Fox!"

"Ben Affleck!"

"Katherine Kane!"

"George Clooney!"

She keeps lying, she keeps coming up with things, and she waits for someone to help her, since she's a little too occupied to help herself at the moments. She slips, and tells the truth, and it falls in place with the lies, and she is punished for the truth, and she feels a small jump of triumph, even as she scrambles to come up with the next name.

Her blood pools at her feet, thick and red and shining in the bright light. She closes her eyes, and hears only her own screams.

* * *

Someone is _here_ someone is holding her, someone is _here_, yelling her not-name over and over, begging her to… what was it?

There's a blur of movement, and then Steph flinches away from the new person, pressing herself against whoever is holding her, because they feel nice and they seem to care.

Someone puts a hand on her stomach and she whimpers in pain as the ravaged flesh is pressed on.

She looks up, blearily, and finally recognizes Cass's face. "Don't…" she whispers, her voice cracked and awful sounding. "Don't leave me?"

"Won't," Cass promises, face tight and worried, and Steph is so _grateful_.

"You wouldn't if you knew," she whispers—_why does she say that_? "You'd hate me." She closes her eyes again, and she feels tears leak out from her eyelids, warm and wet on her cheeks. The blood is dried on now—Black Mask has been gone for a while; gone to do _something_, but she doesn't remember what, if she ever knew. She was supposed to die here; or was Dad supposed to find her? The temporary clear edge to reality fades away, and she clings to Cass's cape.

Something tightens around her stomach—bandages?—and then there is a blur of movement, but this time she _is_ the movement, being carried in someone's arms, away from the room with the blood and the pain, carried… somewhere.

* * *

They find Art halfway up a staircase. How he got there, they're not sure—he must have escaped the cell below somehow. Cass tries to ascertain his injuries while Tim slips past them to look for Mask, or anything to tell them what happened here.

Art's face is broken and bloodied, dark red smears caked and cracked with age on his cheeks and chin. His lips are cracked and bleeding as well—dehydration, maybe? His fingers look swollen, as if someone broke them. His wrists and upper arms are covered in rope burn, while his lower arms are marked with knife wounds. His chest is a mess—blood is everywhere, open wounds gaping, coagulated but not tended. Bruises are everywhere—she recognizes the marks of strangulation and beatings. The stitches in his throat have been partially torn. There's a lot of blood.

"Art, Art, Art," she pleads, shaking his shoulders—he's alive, he's breathing, he'll be okay, he'll be okay, even if everything is [_pain, agony, confusion, fear_] it'll get better, it'll all get better, it has to get better, Leslie and Alfred can fix this, they _have to fix this_.

Art's eyelids flicker, and Cass thinks she hears him mutter something that sounds like "_step_,".

"You made it," she tries to reassure him. "You're out, you're safe. You made it up the steps, Art. You'll be okay now."

Art's eyes flicker shut, but he leans into her, and she scrambles with her belt, trying to get out the emergency aid kit that she carries there. "Tim!" She calls, unsure of what needs the most immediate attention. Art flinches into her, probably startled by the loud noise.

Tim emerges from below, pale as snow [_horror, fear, worry_]. "He's lost a lot of blood," Tim reports. "It's… Cass it's not good. We need to get him to Leslie."

Cass and Tim bandage up Art the best they can. Art's eyes snap open, and seem to focus on Cass for a second.

"Don't… don't leave me?" [_Recognition, comfort, fear, pain._]

"Won't," Cass promises, wrapping Art's throat with bandages. She swallows, wondering just how much blood Art has lost.

"You wouldn't if you knew," Art mutters, eyes losing their focus [_shame, loneliness._] "You'd hate me."

"I know," Cass tries to say, sure Art is talking about the fiasco outside, but that doesn't matter, because Art is _bleeding_, Art is _dying_. Art did this trying to _fix it_.

"Let's go," Tim says [_fear, determination, worry_]. "The Redbird is nearby."

They run to Tim's car, Art tight in Cass's arms.

* * *

Steph dreams.

She dreams of a girl Robin with long gold hair and a green headband. Batman calls her Stephanie, and the girl smiles, freer than Steph has ever been.

She dreams of her mother's arms, safe and warm, and her mother's voice, sweet and kind, whispering "daughter", proud and soft.

She dreams of a costume, purple and yellow, marked with a bright yellow bat symbol. It's important, she knows, but she can't see who is in it, and it fades before she can get close enough.

She dreams of Cass, calling her "Steph", casually and wonderfully, smiling as she looks at her.

She dreams of memories of Tim, but they're nicer now; she's a girl and there is no bitter undertone to the sweetness of his kisses.

Bruce appears next, and she frowns slightly. Well, it's a dream. And things have gone well so far…

"I just wanted to help," she whispers, looking at him. "I didn't mean…"

"I know," he says, and he sits, taking her hand—why is she lying down? What a strange dream. She feels as if she is floating, and there is no sensation in the hand that Bruce holds. "I'm sorry, I should have… been more careful."

"Was it… was it just a joke?" She asks, her voice small. "Making me Robin?"

"_No_." Bruce says, ferociously, and Steph smiles in the dream. "You were my Robin. I failed you. I'm sorry."

"I _was_ Robin," Steph feels herself smiling, but the dream is fading already, darkness setting in around the edges. This was a good dream… "Good," she says, before slipping into the inky black.

* * *

"How bad is it?" Cass demands, clinging to Leslie. Bruce is talking to Art, so Art isn't alone, and that's what matters at the moment.

"Very," Leslie says, [_concern, fear, busy, calm, worry_]. "He lost a lot of blood—but he should live. He'll be scarred, but he will probably live."

Cass slumps with relief. "Art is stubborn," she says. "He'll be fine," she whispers.

"Cass, go find a place to sleep," Leslie orders. "Here, go to my apartment." A key, cold and gold, is pressed into Cass's palm. Cass closes her fist over it, feeling the sharp edges digging into her skin. "Art's about to go in for an MRI; you can't stay."

"MRI?" Cass echoes.

"We might have internal bleeding," Leslie says grimly. "But it should be okay. Now go _sleep_. I'm overseeing it, and Art's about to go under. You can come back in a few hours."

Cass nods, knowing the futility of arguing with Leslie over this, not when the world is still fighting and screaming outside.

Orpheus is starting to gather control, but it's still tentative, and there are many still fighting.

Cass slinks away, and collapses on Leslie's couch, and doesn't wake up for twelve hours.

And when she wakes up, it's too late.

* * *

Leslie runs her hands through her hair.

"You okay, Doctor Thompkins?" Harper Row, a volunteer, asks. The girl is still in high school, but she wants to be a doctor, she's been volunteering at the clinic for months now, and she knows what she's doing, has since No Man's Land, and she has steady hands, and the clinic is too crowded to turn away help of any kind.

"Yes, I'm fine," she says, looking in on Art's room. Art's heartbeat has regulated, but he's still in a risky spot—the surgery went well, but Art was far from in a safe spot.

That was when Cullen, Harper's brother, who had been acting as a go-fer, ever since he'd arrived, searching for his sister and a safe place. "Doctor Leslie!" He yells, face stark white and eyes darting everyone. "We've got… Cluemaster is here! And he's… he's got guns. He wants to know where his, uh, homosexual son."

Leslie curses everything and everyone mentally. She knows that Art is afraid of that man; always has been, as long as Leslie has known him, and she sees another aspect of it now—she has seen parents like this before, but never in her clinic, never with a criminal as dangerous and unbalanced as Cluemaster. "Start evacuations!" She snaps, keeping her voice steady as a rock. "Cluemaster is highly dangerous. Get _him_ into a helicopter!" She points at Art, and her hand is as steady as her voice; a surgeon's hands, a healer's hands. She is not meant to walk into the battle she is about to. "We're taking him to Metropolis—it's not going to be safe in Gotham for him soon."

She texts Barbara—**HOSPITAL UNDER ATTACK.**

(So is the Clocktower—Black Mask believes it is the Batcave, and Dick and Bruce are attacking with everything they have while Cass and Tim both sleep for the first time in a week. Helena and Azrael fight on the streets, communicators broken and exhausted to the bone. Leslie is alone.)

She strides into the waiting room, which has been cleared out. She worries for her patients, before focusing on Arthur Brown.

Cluemaster wears that awful shade of burnt orange, but his mask is off. He looks a little like his son—his eyes are the same dark blue, and there are resemblances in the brow and the nose—but apart from that there are few similarities as far as Leslie can see.

"Mr. Brown?" Leslie says, voice crisp and clear, mouth a thin, reprimanding line.

He swings around to face her, and she sees raw anger in his eyes; a lust for violence, and she wonders how Art had been this man's son, how Bruce had ever believed that Art was like his father.

"Where's my son?" Arthur Brown demands, his voice a shout.

"He is in surgery, Mister Brown. How can I help you?" The lie is easy, and she hopes the man's intentions are not what she fears.

"What surgery?" Brown growls. "I'm going to fucking kill him."

Leslie crosses her arms. "Kindly leave the premises," she says, voice icy and cold, but even. She just hopes she bought them enough time. She fears what this man will do; he is armed and dangerous, and her phone is still and silent in her pocket.

"Like hell," Brown snarls, lip curling into a smirk. "That f****t made me the laughingstock of Gotham; I'm not about to take that."

"You won't have a choice," Leslie says calmly, not allowing any of her anxiety to show. _Barbara, where are you_? "Arthur is in surgery right now, and is in critical condition. No visitors are permitted right now—and you have no legal rights to your son, as it is."

"I ain't asking, Doc," Arthur Brown draws his gun and points it at her head. There's a dreadful _click_ as the safety is released. "Take me to my son."

Leslie closes her eyes briefly and breathes slowly. Then she turns, and pushes open the doors. The clinic is silent, and Leslie sighs in quiet relief—evacuation is proceeding. She hopes the other hospitals have enough room for them.

She leads Arthur away from Art's room, towards the surgery. She just hopes that Harper will leave without her.

The gun rests on the nape of her neck as she walks, and she loathes this man—he would attack his own child, and Leslie can only imagine what he'll do to her when he realizes she is protecting him.

Something flickers in the corner of her eye, and she sees Harper Row, carrying… what _is_ that?

Harper slams the shiny metal medical tray against Brown's head, and the man goes _down_ like a rock. Harper then kicks the gun away, and it slams into the wall. Leslie winces, expecting it to fire, but it doesn't. Harper grabs her hand and they _run_.

* * *

They're being chased. Leslie curses the tenacity of Arthur Brown, curses Bruce for not doing anything about this—Art is too fragile to be moved like this, this is _dangerous_. She squints out the back of the medical helicopter to the pursuing black army one that Cluemaster had gotten from God-knows-where. She hopes it's not armed.

"Doctor Leslie!" Harper yells, breaking through her thoughts. "He's crashing."

Leslie curses, stumbling towards Art, grabbing the offered defibrillators from Harper.

"Clear!" She yells, pressing the metal against Art's chest.

* * *

This is how Arthur Brown Junior dies.

_Pain and fire and blur; loneliness and despair, heart stuttering to a stop_.

This is how Stephanie Brown is reborn.

_Clarity, shocking aching clarity, the arc of electricity, the spike of a heart, the arc of a back, a gasp of air_.

This is how Arthur Brown Junior dies.

_"We're still being followed!"_

_"Contact Batman!"_

_"We can't! He's listening in!"_

_"How on earth can you tell, Cullen?"_

_"I'll explain later! But he's listening!"_

_"God forgive me, then."_

_"Doctor Leslie?"_

_"Barbara? Barbara? Do you read me?"_

_A crackle of static._

_"Leslie? I got your message—"_

_"We evacuated. But… Barbara… Art crashed in the helicopter. He's dead."_

* * *

"_No!_" Cass screams, voice high and piercing. "No! No!" She lunges for the microphone held in Babs's numb hands, and tries to operate it, but she doesn't know how, and Leslie is only apologizing, over and over again, before being cut off by something.

"No, no, no, no." Cass is crying, thick, sloppy tears pouring down her face as she pleads with the world at large.

Babs's arms encircle her, pulling her into Babs's warm lap, and Babs is crying too, chest heaving, and the two try to comfort each other the best that they can.

* * *

Crystal emerges from her break, bleary eyed and exhausted to the bone. The fighting is over, the police and the news say, but casualties keep pouring in, crowding all of the hospitals to its breaking point.

She sees Cass, walking towards her with a grim expression. There are tears on the girl's cheeks, and her eyes are red, her skin pale.

Crystal forgets to breathe.

"No," she whispers, staring at Cass, her boy's best friend, in numb, awful horror. It creeps on her, sinking into her mind that her child is…

"I'm sorry," Cass whispers, tears flowing over her eyes. Her lip trembles. "I'm… I'm…"

"_No!_" Crystal breaks, shattering into a thousand pieces. She collapses onto the cool, tiled floor of the hallway, crying desperately. Her grief encompasses everything—nothing else matters now. Her boy is dead; let everything else burn. She cries and sobs, her heart broken and in pieces, and she cries until there is nothing left, until she has been hollowed out, her insides scooped clean and thrown away, leaving a shell of a person behind.

She'd thought she'd known grief before, when she'd lost her parents. She'd thought she'd known emptiness when she'd gone to drugs, with their blissful oblivion and their highs and their lows. But now, her heart gone and her world empty, no longer a mother, no longer a real person, just a mannequin with mannerisms of grief, she knows that it was wrong. There is no bliss, no highs to be found here. There is no will to be read, no reassurance that it was their time, it was painless, to be found from her dead son.

The rawness of her wound cries out as Cassandra wraps her arms around her and carries her back into the lounge. Cassandra cries as well—her nose runs and her bruised face is now covered in tears, but Crystal is too numb to say anything.

She does not ask any more of the girl, and Cassandra has nothing to offer her, for she is empty and mourning as well.

* * *

Harley Quin kills Arthur Brown twelve hours after Arthur Brown, Jr. is declared dead. She smashes his head against the concrete and leaves him on a rooftop to be found by the police.

When asked why, Harley doesn't answer, just cracks a joke or blows it off.

(It's because Harley hates child killers, hates abusers, even if she can't recognize her own abuser, because she hates homophobes and had _liked_ Spoiler, who seemed like a sweet kid. But she will never tell.)

* * *

The whole family is numb. Tim cries and Cass cries, and Kon comes and hugs Tim and looks sad, which makes Cass _furious_ because Art hated Kon, Kon and Tim hurt Art, so how dare he be there, at Art's funeral, when Art would not want him there, but Babs grabs her sleeve and shakes her head, so Cass just cries, and thinks about how wrong everything is.

Helena hugs her, and Cass cries harder, wondering what Art would have said if he knew that Helena had taken bullets to the stomach during the fighting.

"He deserved better," Dinah says, her face clouded with grief, and they all nod. It doesn't escape Cass's notice that many of them glare at Bruce, like they blame him. Cass isn't sure if she does; she knows that Bruce hurt Art, but Black Mask hurt him _more_, and he's still out there, so Cass will take care of him first, and then worry about how Bruce hurt Art.

Cass speaks at the funeral. "Art… was my friend. My… my best friend. He showed me books. He gave me words. He… he was good, and he was afraid of being bad. He always wanted…" a sob sneaks out of her, and she covers her mouth with her hands. "He wanted to prove he was. He didn't need to. But he did. He… he was the best—" She breaks off, and Crystal hugs her. "Thank you for finding him," Crystal whispers to her, even though she's shaking with her own tears and grief fills her so much that Cass can barely read her. "He didn't… he didn't die alone. Because of you. That means everything."

"Not enough," Cass whispers, but she hugs Crystal back. She touches Crystal's hair, which is so close to Art's in color. It's not as long, however. Art had been so proud of his long hair, had treasured it and taken good care of it. It had been shocking, when he had become Robin; that he had just cut it—it was as if Art had cut a part of himself off to be Robin, to fit the mold that Bruce wanted him to fit in.

Tim speaks next, and Cass remembers Art's _anger_ when he found out about Tim and Kon; not that Cass had known until later. "I wasn't good enough for him," Art had mumbled, face in his hands, collapsed against the wall in Cass's apartment, when Cass had finally returned from the Teen Titans to find her best friend upset and furious. "I never was. No wonder he left me, I'm just a useless…" Cass had interrupted him, hugging him and yelling at him, but Cass recalls it now, and she frowns as Tim talks about how happy Art was, and that's… wrong. Art was miserable often, full of tears or anger or a bizarre confusion and sadness that was all encompassing. Art smiled, yes, and hoped, but Art was not _happy_.

She says nothing, even though she must bite her tongue to do so.

After the funeral is done and the speeches are made, and everyone but the heroes have filed out, Crystal crosses the room in a few short strides, towards Bruce.

"Ms. Brown," Bruce says, face grim as ever.

Crystal Brown punches Bruce Wayne on the jaw. The room goes silent.

"You made my boy cry," Crystal says, softly. "He came home and he cried, and he wouldn't talk to me, he wouldn't tell me anything. But I know it was you, you bastard; it was always you when he got like that. You made my boy think he wasn't good enough; you made him doubt himself. You can tell me all you want that he stole those plans, but you _can't_ tell me that you didn't drive him to the point where he felt that he needed to." Grief and anger fill her voice, and Bruce has his hand to his jaw, staring at her, flabbergasted. "My boy was better than you could ever hope to be, Mr. Wayne. And he's dead, and you're alive, and now I get to know that he died, thinking he _failed_ and wasn't worthy of being Robin." Her eyes are dry and her voice is strong, and Crystal Brown is fantastic. "My boy is a hero. Better than you could ever hope to be." She spins on her heel and walks away, and she leaves Bruce with a bruise on his chin and his eyes so wide that his new bruise could almost fit in them.

Crystal goes to Cass next, and she softens. She hugs Cass so tightly that Cass almost feels attacked, but she knows that Crystal needs comfort, and she needs it too, so she hugs her back, and they cry together. "Thank you," Crystal says. "You made him feel loved. And he needed that. God knows I didn't do as good of a job as I should have…" She chokes off in a sob and clings Cass tighter. "You were a good friend," Crystal whispers, and she presses something into Cass's hands—Art's Walkman, and the two sets of headphones that they used to listen to stories. "You… you need anything, just come to me. A place to stay, a warm meal…"

Cass nods. "Okay." She whispers back, and she sees where Art's big heart and kindness had come from. Despite what Art always feared, it was Crystal, not Arthur, that he took after.

Crystal looks at Tim, who stands by Kon, holding hands and looking like he hasn't stopped crying since Art's heart stopped. "You hurt my boy," she says softly. "You broke his heart. He loved you, he did. And you left him. He didn't come home that night—I don't know where he went. He never did tell me that. Then you took Robin back, not so much as a by-your-leave, and that broke him. He gave everything to be Robin, and you just took it, not even thinking of him." She swallowed. "But he loved you. Even when you hurt him, he loved you. You made him happy, sometimes." She looks at Kon, and then at Tim. "Be better next time, boy," she says, and it's a threat, somehow.

Crystal leaves then, and Cass stays. She sits by the grave. She holds the Walkman in her hands, the tape frozen where they had stopped, in the middle of _Lady Knight_, back when Art had been Robin and things had been better, if not perfect, or even necessarily good. Cass sits on the grave, the freshly turned over soil pungent and hateful to her nose. The dirt gets all over the nice black dress Alfred had bought her, but she doesn't care, because it's a funeral dress, and a dress for death doesn't deserve her care or concern. She shifts the flowers so she doesn't crush them, and then leans on the gravestone, pretending that Art is beside her, pretending she can feel his warm body pressed against hers. She puts one pair of headphones on, and then sets the other pair on the grave, so Art can hear as well.

_"Approaching Haven at the head of a train of soldiers and wagons, Kel fought the urge to turn Hoshi, cross the river to Scanra, and find Blayce on her own."***  
**_

Cass closes her eyes and cries, silently, while she listens.

* * *

Bruce tries to send her and Tim to Bludhaven, but Cass refuses.

"No," she says, numb. "Lost Art. Not going to lose you. And Babs. Staying," she insists, balling her hands into fists, squaring her shoulders. He can't make her. He can take away Batgirl, he can take everything away, but he can't make her leave. Because she knows Art would not want her to leave, not when Crystal is hurting and needs looking after, not when Cass needs Babs' comfort and the familiarity of home.

"It's safer—"

"I plenty safe," Cass says flatly.

"The police are against us—"

"Then you leave too," Cass crosses her arms, not budging. She will not leave. She has allowed Bruce to move her too often, and she knows Art was hurt because of it. She will stand firm. Gotham is her city as much as it is Bruce's, and she will not leave it now.

* * *

Crystal sits in her apartment and listens to an old recording of her boy playing. _Für Elise_plays softly, and then.

"Mom! Are you recording this?"

"You play so beautifully!"

"Mom!"

Crystal presses her hands to her mouth. She's forgotten—oh god, she'd forgotten. Forgotten that his voice was on the tape, forgotten how happy they had been. Tears, unbidden, begin to leak from her eyes, pouring down her cheeks.

"Why don't we sing?" Her own voice is so happy, unknowing that she'd lose her beautiful baby so soon. That she'd be alone in the apartment, and that the piano would never play again, gathering dust on the chipped keys and the strings slowly creaking out of tune.

"What do you want to sing?" Art asks, not protesting, because her baby loved to play, he loved to sing, and he loved it that she was there with him, sober and clean and happy. She curses herself again, for robbing them of time together.

"_The Entertainer_?" She suggests on the recording, her voice trembling with suppressed laughter.

"Keep up with me then!" The familiar notes of Scott Joplin's masterpiece flow, and Crystal's own voice croons out of the tape player.

_"Now the curtain is going up__  
__The Entertainer is taking a bow_  
_Does a dance step and sings a song_  
_Even gets all the audience to sing along_  
_Yes he knows just what he must do_  
_Knows how to bring down the house when he's through_  
_Snappy patter and jokes, he knows what pleases the folks_  
_The Entertainer, the star of the show."_

Crystal nearly breaks down as Art joins her for the second verse, laughing as he joins in, his playing not faltering as his beautiful tenor joins her thin, wavering mezzo-soprano.

_"It was in vaudeville that he was on the bill__  
__With all the singers, dancers, acrobats, and clowns_  
_There was a dancing bear, even a dog act there_  
_And a comedian who never let 'em down_  
_But when he came on to do his favorite song_  
_He really wowed them in the cities and the towns_  
_They came from near and far_  
_To see the vaudeville star."_

Crystal cries, her elbows propped on the table, and she sits alone in her apartment, left alone with a recording of her boy and her memories.

Crystal Brown is all alone, and she thinks, staring at the tape recorder that sits on the table on its side, the final verse still playing, she will always be alone now.

_"Now the curtain is going down__  
__On the Entertainer, the artist, the pro_  
_He was put on this Earth_  
_To bring us laughter and mirth_  
_The Entertainer, the star of the show."**  
**_

* * *

Cass stays. Tim stays. Babs stays. Only Dick leaves, returning to Bludhaven to continue to clean up his city. Onyx and Orpheus go with him, and Bruce says nothing at all.

Bruce doesn't speak to any of them, but Cass doesn't mind. She throws herself full-bodied into the streets of Gotham, trying to numb herself, to accustom herself to the empty space beside her, where her best friend should be.

She nearly drowns one night, fighting the Brotherhood of Evil, and she sees Art in her mind, alive and strong and kind as ever.

"You can't die yet," Art says, holding her in his arms. His face is young and _alive_, smiling at her softly.

"Why?" Cass asks, tears in her eyes, "You did!"

"Not your time yet," he says, kissing her forehead, leaving her feeling warm. "Now _swim_."

Cass's head breaks the surface of the harbor, gasping for breath, coughing out the polluted brine. Tim grabs her, tugging her to shore, and she spits out the awful taste and hopes the harbor water hides her tears, and her shaking can be attributed to the icy water she just escaped from.

* * *

The piano is gathering dust. Crystal slams shut the lid to cover it up, but that makes it even worse, since Art never covered the keyboard, he was always playing it, or wanted to be able to just slip in and play, not wanting to bother with having to lift the lid before being able to fly into whatever song he wanted to play that day.

She goes into his room to escape the piano, staring at the mess Art had left behind. The bed is neatly made, the star-patterned quilt smooth and the pillows fluffed. But his clothes are scattered all over the floor, his bookshelf is in disarray, the science fiction and fantasy books out of the careful order he kept them in normally.

The navy walls are plastered with posters; piano concerts, comic book heroes, and even a few of real heroes. Art's piano books and sheet music are piled haphazardly on the desk, next to textbooks and notebooks for school. His spare cloak is draped over the swivel chair by the desk. She touches the fabric, choking back a sob.

Beneath the bed, shoved there angrily, in a fit of rage that Crystal remembers hearing, Crystal can see the Robin costume. Her breath catches in her throat, and she drops to her knees, pulling it out.

She stares at the Robin insignia over the heart and rubs her thumb across it, holding the bright colors in her lap.

_Is this what you died for?_A part of her wants to ask her child. _Did you die for a uniform, for an ideal? You never needed it. You were always more than what they said you were, you never needed a costume or a legacy to prove that._

She gives the uniform and the cloak to Cass. She can't stand to have them in her house anymore; the thoughts they carry are too painful to stand.

Alfred comes to visit, soft spoken and kind, making tea and carrying food. Crystal forgot to eat again, yesterday, and he can tell, gently reprimanding her even as he sets the table heats the food on the stove. "I know it is difficult," he says quietly, holding her hand as they sit at the table over a cup of tea. "After Jason died, Master Bruce was in a very similar state."

She laughs, shortly and bitterly, anger and resentment in her heart. "Then he should have taken better care of my boy," she says, thinking of his sunken eyes and bruised face and of the autopsy report, held in her trembling hands, describing what the Black Mask did to her son.

"Yes," Alfred agrees, squeezing her hand tightly. "He should have."

* * *

Cass gives Art's uniform to Bruce, thinking he will make a memorial for him, like the one for Jason, to honor their fallen friend.

It doesn't happen. The uniform disappears, but Bruce says nothing about it, and Cass stops visiting his cave for a while, busy helping Babs with her Birds of Prey. Helena offers to let Cass stay with her for a while, and Cass gratefully accepts—her own apartment feels strange now—memories of Art peppered everywhere. She doesn't know how Crystal lives in the apartment, where Art's ghost must inescapable. But maybe it's just Cass—maybe ghosts aren't as bad for other people.

"It varies," Helena says to her, when Cass finally manages to ask. "Sometimes people need to see the things that remind them of people they loved—they can't let go. They won't change things, because that's admitting they're gone. Others… the memories hurt too much."

"What about you?" Cass asks, curious. She fiddles with Helena's crossbow, remembering Cain's lessons on the weapon. She dismantles it thoughtlessly, inspecting it for damage on autopilot, and starts to put it back together.

Helena is cooking, her frizzy hair even wilder in the steam of the boiling water. Her brown skin gleams in the light, and Cass thinks Helena is unfairly pretty.

"I didn't get to choose my grief," Helena says, closing her eyes for a second. "I got taken away. I got told how I should behave, how I should feel, and I did… it wasn't the best way, maybe, but it was the Bertinelli way. Blood cries for blood. My family was killed, so I was… taught that revenge should be extracted." Helena looks away, focusing on her knife, dicing onions with mechanical precision. "And I did," she whispers, her voice almost too soft to hear, underneath the bubbling of the boiling water and the sound of the knife knocking against the wood as it makes its cuts through the onions. "Now… it's more complicated. I haven't… I lost everyone close to me, once. I've only just started making new ties. I don't know how I'll react, when it's time to grieve." She scrapes the onions into the ceramic pan, and they hiss pleasantly as they hit the olive oil already bubbling in there.

"I… Art was my friend," Cass says. "I… I want to hurt Black Mask. For hurting him."

"I saw the report," Helena agrees softly, measuring out some sort of tomato sauce from heavy glass jars—the kind that they only sell empty in the store, meaning Helena filled it herself. "That bastard deserves a world of pain for doing that to Art. If we could find him," she says it bitterly, adding the sauce to the onions, and then reaching over on the counter to retrieve a clove of garlic from a ceramic bowl.

"But we can't," Cass says, miserable. "How can he hide so well?"

"He probably skipped town," Helena replies quietly. "That's probably why Bruce stopped fighting over you and Tim going to Bludhaven—he probably figures Mask went over there to dodge the capes for a while."

"He better run forever," Cass hisses, anger coiling inside her stomach like a snake. "He killed Art."

"If he's smart, he will," Helena says, sprinkling herbs into the sauce before adding a few shakes of a dark liquid. "But he's greedy as well—he carved himself an empire here; he's going to want to rule it."

Cass scowls. "I'll break him," she hisses.

"And I'll put a crossbow through him," Helena agrees, putting a lid over the sauce. "There. Do you want to help me set the table?"

"How?" Cass asks. "Alfred does it one way, but Babs another…"

"Alfred does it _British_," Helena says with a sigh. "I don't know about Babs, but… what hand does she tell you to use a fork with?"

"Left? Like Alfred?"

"_Good_. Don't trust the Americans, Cass. They use the right hand for the fork, and that's just _wrong_."

"Aren't you American?"

"I'm Italian-American," Helena says with a sniff. "And Italy might be wrong about some things, but it's not wrong about food."

Cass _likes_ Helena's cooking. There's bread and salad before the pasta (Cass finds she likes olive oil better than butter with bread), and then the pasta and sauce, which is delicious. For desert, Helena produces a chocolate cake, which is fantastic.

Cass, who is used to living off MREs and trail rations, in a bit overwhelmed, but she likes it well enough.

"Thanks," she says at the end of the meal, drying the dishes as Helena washes them. "For… everything."

Helena smiles at her, the edges she's used to seeing as Huntress gone. "Anytime."

* * *

Tim puts lilacs on the grave. A wreath of Star of Bethlehem's lays against the gravestone, while forget-me-nots are draped over it. A bouquet of white carnations rests on the grass that is starting to spring up over the grave. A single white tulip is there as well, placed about where Art's chest would be.

"I'm sorry," Tim says to the grave. "I… I'd change it all if I could." He bows his head. "She was right. You—you deserved better." He falls to his knees, pressing his hands against his eyes, trying to stem the tears he knows are coming.

"You weren't—it's not right!" He screams. "You shouldn't be—I shouldn't be—" He breaks off in sobs, the grief consuming him in full.

The grave sits before him, cold and granite.

**HERE LIES**

**ARTHUR BROWN JUNIOR**

**SON AND HERO**

* * *

Cass finally goes back to the Cave under Wayne Manor, and Bruce has done nothing with Art's uniform.

Cass is furious—she does not ask any questions, she merely steals the uniform back and builds Art a shrine in her own cave—cruder, maybe, than the one for Jason Todd, but it is a shrine for Robin, the fallen Robin, nevertheless.

Art watches over her, Cass is sure of it, and she sets back to work, trying to honor him.

* * *

She wakes up, and the pain is gone. Steph pauses, marveling at everything.

Her throat is drier than a desert, sure, but her stomach no longer feels on fire, her ribs no longer ache and stab at her insides, her mouth no longer tastes of blood and bile, and her vision is clear. She flexes her fingers, and they move, stiffly, but surely. An IV is attached to her wrist, and she follows it with her eyes to see a clear solution in a bag, dripping into her slowly. She rolls her head in the other direction, and sees a window, the curtains drawn, but the sun poking through the cracks in the fabric.

The door is closed, and no one is in sight. Steph's heart twinges slightly at that; she thought her mom, at least, would want to be with her. And… Cass? She though Cass had been there when she went to sleep.

She vaguely recalls Bruce being by her bedside, holding her hand and saying something, but she dismisses it as a hallucination or a dream. The Bruce in the faded memory had looked concerned, and had… actually told her nice things, instead of making impossible demands and putting her down.

She struggled to sit up; there had to be a button to call a nurse or something, and they could get her mom; she hoped Mom hadn't worried too much…

"Art!" The door to her room burst open and Doctor Leslie practically ran in, her normally neat grey hair in disarray. She looked a lot better than Steph last remembered seeing her—the dark circles under her eyes were faded and she no longer had Steph's blood on her hands. "You're awake!"

"Sure am!" Steph says, flashing her widest smile. "Where's Mom? Is she okay?"

Something flickers in Leslie's face. "Art…" she says quietly, "What's the last thing you remember?"

Steph freezes. "Is my mom okay?" She demands, her heart racing suddenly, which is accompanied by a sharp upswing in the monitor beside her.

"Yes, she's fine," Leslie says, walking towards Steph slowly. "Art… you're not in Gotham anymore."

Leslie lays it out, explaining about Cluemaster, about the hospital attack, about the helicopter chase. About placing the call in a frantic attempt to get rid of Arthur, and it working, and how Leslie let it lie because she wasn't sure if Steph would ever wake up.

Steph freezes, thinking about her mother, about Cass, about Tim…

"They… they think I'm dead?" She whispers. Something stirs inside of her, something awful and hateful and… hopeful.

"Yes," Leslie says, taking her hand. "I'm sorry, Art."

The name whips against her, a vicious reminder as usual, but the _thing_ in her chest whispers, murmurs, unfairly hopeful and _impossible_, but…

Leslie looks at her, with kind, kind eyes, and Steph realizes, with a jolt, that if she can't trust Leslie, there is no one to trust. There will never be another opportunity like this—she is safe from Arthur's rage and judgment and she has already lost Tim, Cass and her mother to death. She is outside Bruce's shadow as well—he cannot judge her or stop her.

She licks her lips. "Leslie?" She asks, in a small, small voice. "I have something I should tell you."

* * *

Leslie stares at the child—barely even a child anymore, almost an adult. Art flinches under her gaze, as if afraid that Leslie will strike out with violence, terrified of the secret just confessed.

"Oh you poor girl," Leslie breathes.

The girl cries, a smile unfurling on her face, and Leslie embraces her, careful for the wires and tubes.

"I'll see what I can do," Leslie promises, gripping Art—no, _Stephanie's_—hand tightly.

And they both cry a little more.

* * *

The Red Hood shoots the Black Mask, who he finds in Bludhaven, just as Helena suspected. Cass almost approves, which horrifies her to no end.

She remembers when she used to say "Nobody dies tonight." But when she thinks of Art, all Cass wants is the Black Mask to _pay_, to suffer, to mourn as they did.

Black Mask lives, but he's going to prison, and Cass swears to herself that he will stay there. The Red Hood shattered his knees with bullets, and Cass thinks that he will never hurt anyone else like he hurt Art ever again.

But the Red Hood does not stop there. He kills and he wreaks havoc, burning buildings and sending the Mafia and the Mob into a furor, unleashing Amazo and leaving explosive presents in the Batmobile.

Bruce whispers a name, like a prayer, like a curse, and the whole world freezes.

_Jason_.

Jason, the dead boy, Jason, the mourned son, Jason, Robin, Jason, the soldier, Jason who loved ice cream and baseball and books with pretty covers, Jason, Jason, _Jason_.

Jason, who died and now is alive, who hates Bruce now, blaming him for something that Cass doesn't fully understand, who injures Tim and who hates it when criminals hurt children, Jason who uses guns and knives and straps explosives to his own helmet without care for his own safety, Jason, who wants the Joker dead and Bruce to kill, Jason, who makes Alfred freeze up and go pale, Jason who rips apart Cass's family simply by existing, by _living_, Jason, Jason, _Jason_.

Cass is _furious_. Because Jason is alive, and Art is still dead, because Tim is hurt and heartbroken, because Bruce is upset, because Babs was hurt by the Joker too, and she does not want Bruce to kill, because Alfred is silent and Bruce pushes her away, because Jason kills and doesn't _care_.

Cass will not allow this to stand. Gotham is her city, and her family is hurt. She will not permit this; not as long as she breathes, since as long as she breathes, she can fight.

She tracks him down, Babs whispering reassuringly in her ear, telling her of locations and guards and traps and security. She rips through his guards, through his hideout, breaking legs and fingers and disabling cameras as she goes. She is shot three times, and she doesn't care, stampeding through the warehouse without a care. She shatters his helmet and unloads his guns, she pins him to the floor with her foot on his chest and she _glares_.

"No more," she snaps, and she thinks, maybe, that Art would be proud of her.

"Who the hell are you?" Jason demands, trying to push her foot off him, but Cass is strong and her foot remains firm.

"We just lost Art. Don't… don't make us lose you too," Cass says, quietly.

Jason stares at her. "Art?"

"Spoiler," she says, and it's been so long since she's said that name, and she says it with a quiet, mournful reverence. "Black Mask killed him. Like Joker killed you. You… have a chance. Art didn't. Don't waste it."

"Bruce…"

"Changed after you. Harder. Angrier. But… he can't kill. You can't ask that. It would break him." And it _would_, Cass can see that. Bruce is not like Helena, not like her, not like Jason. A single death at his hands would shatter him into a thousand pieces—he is too fragile to handle it. Why can't Jason _see that_? See how Bruce is brittle, and this resolve, to be better than all the rest of them, is all that holds him together at times, especially when his family is so angry and broken.

Jason laughs, a bitter, short sound. "Yeah, that's why I can't—"

"He _can't_," Cass says, furious and upset. "He… he _can't_. It… it will break him." _Can't you see?_

Jason's face darkens, and he spits, "He doesn't understand, he can't understand, that bastard is too wrapped up in his own—"

"I killed." Cass blurts out, desperate to make him see, to _understand_. She knows that Bruce doesn't understand—there is much he doesn't understand. But she _sees_, that Jason believes he is a monster; that Bruce will not take him back; that Bruce cannot forgive Jason as long as the blood is staining his hands. Cass may not be able to make Jason see how brittle Bruce is, but she can, maybe, help Jason get Bruce to explain it. "Once. I… hand in his throat. I didn't… I watched him die. Bruce forgave me. He… he can forgive you too."

"People died," Jason says, although he's weakening, giving in. "He won't care about the rest."

"He will. I'll make him." Cass says it with all the confidence she could muster. She sees a softness in Jason, beneath the layers of anger, and she sees the boy that Bruce loved. She can bring the boy home, even if he's grown up in a way that Bruce would never have chosen for him.

Jason laughs again, less bitter, but still biting and sad. "Like you can."

"I beat Shiva. I can beat him." Cass says simply, smiling at him, and she lets herself _hope_, for the first time since Art died. She offers him her hand.

Jason hesitates.

"Please," she says, earnest and soft. "You _can_change."

Jason takes her hand.

* * *

Leslie takes them to Thailand, where she knows doctors who work with transgender women and men who wish to change their bodies. Leslie works in the hospital, and she sets up Steph with a therapist who talks to Steph about her gender and how she wants to express it, and helps her get the resources that she'll need to begin the transition.

The process is slow, agonizingly so. First are the hormones—small, pills at first, but eventually shots as well. Estrogen and progesterone, softening her features and her hair. Steph is terribly grateful she's blond—her arm hair doesn't need altering and she was already in the habit of shaving her legs. She goes to voice training, learning how to pitch her voice higher, sweeter, and fuller. She talks on the phone to people, and soon they stop calling her "sir" and start calling her "miss", and she nearly explodes with joy.

She grows her hair out again; it had already made progress during the coma, but the estrogen seems to speed it up, and soon it's brushing her shoulders, and Harper helps her style it, laughing and telling her stories of her own hair adventures. Steph can't help but play with it all the time—it feels so nice, so _wonderful_, after years of her coarser boy-hair.

Her own clothes are _fantastic_, she wears skirts and leggings and shirts with plunging necklines. Harper buys her bras and silicone implants, and Steph hugs her tightly, and they go out, just a couple of white girl tourists, and Steph feels like she's walking on air every time she's called "miss" or "ma'am."

Steph's grateful her features were always more on the feminine side—she probably won't need surgery there, even if she's considering breast augmentation. She knows her breasts would grow, naturally, if she stays on the hormones and stops working out. She has little fat as it is—the consequence of being as athletic as she had been.

"Take your time," Leslie says, when Steph brings it up. "We've scheduled your bottom surgery for twelve months from now."

"Leslie?" Steph asks, her voice small. "I… I was wondering." She pauses, taking a deep breath. "Can we… can we tell my mom?"

"Oh, darling," Leslie says, her face crumpling, "Of _course_we can." She hugs Steph, and Steph hugs back, grateful for the contact. "I can fetch her, if you like. I know you don't want to go back to Gotham."

"Please," Steph whispers, burying her face in Leslie's shirt. "I… I miss her so much. And I hate to think…"

"Don't worry," Leslie smooths back Steph's hair and kisses her forehead. "I will wrap up business there, and return with your mother."

* * *

Leslie returns to Gotham, and Jason Todd meets her at the airport.

She freezes, staring at the ghost of a boy she once knew—taller, broader, scarred and tanned, he is a far cry from the skinny boy with scraped knees and a wide grin she remembers.

"Leslie," he says, smiling at her, sheepish and somewhat guilty, and she throws herself at him, wrapping him in her arms.

"How long?" She demands, pulling away, pressing her hand against his face.

"Few months," Jason says, scuffing his feet.

"Hmph," Leslie says. "Well, are you here just to say hello? Or is there something else you wanted?"

Jason produces an invitation to dinner from Alfred with a flourish, and she stares at it, feeling the guilt gnawing at her. Cassandra would be able to tell in an instant, she thinks. And Alfred knows her too well—he'd know she was hiding something. She will have to turn down the invitation, despite how much she wants to spend time with them. She will not betray Stephanie, however. Stephanie needs time to heal, time to transition, and Leslie cannot take that from her. Steph is absolutely _sure_ that Cass and Tim cannot accept her as a girl, and her fear of Bruce is substantial—caused, Leslie knows, by Bruce's frequent invasion of her privacy and disregard for her feelings. Leslie does not know all the details, but she knows enough to be furious at the man.

However, for now she merely pockets it, and kisses Jason on the cheek. "You sweet boy, still running errands between old folks like Alfred and I?" She teases, and Jason grins at her.

It has been six months, she thinks, walking up to the building where Crystal Brown lives. Six months since a funeral that was nothing but a sham, three months since Stephanie opened her eyes and told Leslie a long-hidden truth, two weeks since Leslie made a promise to bring together a mother and a daughter she never knew she had.

Leslie knocks on the door, and wonders just how much Crystal will hate her, when she is done talking.

* * *

Crystal plays Art's performance of _Fantasia in D Minor_ as she goes through the motions of cleaning her house. Barbara Gordon had helped her digitize the tapes she had of Art's playing, even though they were pitifully few, compared to the hundreds of songs her son had played over the years.

There is a knock on the door. Crystal pauses the music and goes to answer it, a bit lost as to who it might be. Cassandra never comes during the day, and who else comes to visit her?

An elderly woman stands outside the door, frowning slightly and looking anxious, when Crystal looks through the peephole.

She pulls it open, leaving the security chain in place. "Can I help you?"

"Crystal Brown?" The woman asks, looking at her.

"Yes," Crystal says cautiously, fingering her cell phone.

"My name is Doctor Leslie Thompkins," the woman says, and Crystal reels back, because she knows that name that's the woman who was there when her son died, who signed the death certificate. Crystal swallows, wondering why she is here.

"Come on in," she whispers, the familiar grief sticking to her throat and weighing down her chest. _My baby, my boy, my child, too young, too young, too young_.

"Thank you," Leslie says.

Crystal leads her into the kitchen, sitting down. It's right by the piano, and Crystal sits with her back to it, not permitting herself to look at it when her son's presence is too much, attached to this woman who was there when he died; who was there when she couldn't be.

Leslie sits down, facing her. "Ms. Brown," she says, softly, gently, and Crystal wonders if she's here to give her Art's affects, or to deliver last words, or if it's just a visit of comfort. "How much did Bruce tell you about what happened that night?"

"Not much," Crystal admits quietly. "Barbara told more."

What she knows is this—the hospital was under attack, so the hospital was evacuated. Her son was on a chopper, heading north, and was chased. He flat-lined multiple times, and could not be revived.

Leslie looks grim. "Do you know who attacked the hospital?" She asks, gently but firmly.

Crystal shakes her head, staring at the wooden grain of the table. "It was Arthur, though, wasn't it?" She asks, fighting back tears already. Arthur, who had learned about Tim Drake, and who never had tolerated deviations from what he set down as acceptable, and who Art had feared more than anything.

"Yes," Leslie replies. "He was after Art. We departed—we were bound for Metropolis, originally. I knew we had to get out of Gotham, since I knew Scarecrow owed Cluemaster a few favors. However, Metropolis was full. So we were bound for Manitoba instead."

"He chased you," she whispers, eyes dry.

"He did," Leslie says, calmly, as if describing an everyday event, not _the death of her son_. "And that was when Art began to have complications. We had to restart the heart multiple times—and Cluemaster kept getting closer and closer. Whenever I could, I tried to raise Batman, see if I could get any assistance at all. I realized that Arthur was listening in, and he was very close. Art flatlined again as I managed to raise Barbara… so I said the only thing I could think of. Even as Harper defibrillated Art, I told Barbara that Art was dead."

The world stops spinning, and Crystal fights for breath, unable to belief what she was hearing. "He's… Art's…"

"We arrived in Canada," Leslie continues, "Since Cluemaster gave up the chase once he thought Art was dead. We had a few more close calls along the way, and by the time we got to the hospital, Art had slipped into a deep coma. So deep that we thought it might be permanent."

Crystal cannot say anything, torn between fury and hope.

"Art woke up," and _joy,_pure, unbridled joy blossoms in Crystal, _her baby is alive_. "And told me something very important, which is why I've kept this secret. Crystal…" Leslie looks at her, as if she's trying to unravel her, trying to see every last part of her. "What do you know about transgender people?"

Crystal stops, an awful, painful thought shooting through her head. Panic, unbridled panic, because of all the things she'd let Arthur say and all the things _she'd_ said, and all the things she'd done. "My… my Art? Is… transgender?"

"She goes by Stephanie, now," Leslie says, and that's like an arrow through her heart, painful and swift. _"My brave, beautiful son_," she'd said. Had she driven her… her _daughter_ away, using words like that? How often had she called _Stephanie_ "my boy", driving knifes into her heart? She remembers Marcie, that sweet girl who lived two floors up, and talking to Marcie's mother, Lorain, who had feared for her daughter and told Crystal all about it, and Crystal _hates herself_ for not realizing what her child was going through.

"She's okay?" Crystal breaths out, through tears of joy and sorrow, shoving away her guilt for now—there will be time for that later. "She's alive? She's happy?"

"She's better," Leslie says softly. "She asked me to find you for her."

Crystal breaks down again, sobbing for joy, because her child is _alive_, and doesn't hate her, and she can go to see her… her _Stephanie_.

"I'll need to find storage for our things," she whispers. "Where is she?"

"Thailand,' Leslie says. "I leave Monday."

Five days. Crystal can wait five days to see her daughter. It gives her five days to come up with apologies.

* * *

Cass and Jason agree to rent Crystal's apartment. The two of them are itching at the Manor, irritated by Bruce's supervision.

"Thank you," Crystal says, showing them the house. Cass peaks into the room she knows was once Art's, half-curious.

Crystal has removed most of the personal items from the room—she probably wants to bring them with her. But Art's touch remains—the posters, the colors. It's familiar, but not chokingly so, and Cass knows she could sleep in this room with ease.

Crystal hugs her tightly. "Thank you for everything, Cassandra," the woman whispers [_fondness, grief, hope_].

Cass hugs her back, still a bit confused as to why Crystal is leaving, but she thinks she understands Crystal's itch to do _something_, and Leslie has apparently offered that.

* * *

Crystal talks to Leslie the whole way about her daughter, practicing using the correct pronouns and name the whole time.

_Stephanie_, she thinks, and wraps it around the mental image she has of her child. It's been six months—how much has changed? What does her baby look like?

Thailand is where Leslie has hidden her daughter—apparently there are resources here, and Leslie has contacts, so here is where her daughter has come to recreate herself, for when it is time to face the world again.

Leslie takes her to an apartment, and opens the door, and Crystal _stares_.

She stares at her daughter, and she wonders, angrily, how she ever thought her child looked like Arthur. There is no Arthur before her—except perhaps in the beautiful blue eyes, but the rest is so far away from that hateful man that Crystal can barely believe it's her child.

Her hair is soft and straight, falling just past her shoulders, loose except for a blue silk hairband to keep it out of her eyes. Her face is softer, more feminine, and she wears eye shadow and lipstick, more than she needs to, but Crystal understands the desire to control her appearance, and she sees that is what her daughter is doing. Her clothes are completely, beautifully, feminine, and Crystal curses herself for every time she ever made her daughter think she could hate her for this. Her daughter is the most beautiful thing she's ever seen, and she loves her so much that her heart might burst.

"My baby girl," she whispers, tears welling in her eyes, but she refuses to shed them, less her daughter get the wrong idea.

"Mom," chokes out her daughter, her voice higher than it used to be, but Crystal doesn't care, merely opens her arms to welcome her daughter back into her arms. Stephanie throws herself at her, and they embrace tightly, and Crystal wonders if she will ever let go again, as she hugs her daughter, trying to make everything right again.

* * *

Stephanie re-forges herself, far away from the shadows of Gotham City. She purifies herself, removing the flaws, the lies. She will live no more lies; she will not pretend any more.

She creates herself out of music notes and books, out of night time patrols and purple cloaks, out of batarangs and a deeply seated need to see things _better_. She sheds her masks, one at a time (_ArthurArtSonBoyfriendHeroLiarCowardTraitorBoyManChild_), until she looks into the mirror, and thinks, for the first time ever, that she sees herself.

Crystal helps her with makeup, her eye shadow becoming subtler, the lines of her eyeliner smoother and cleaner, and her lipstick no longer smudged and lopsided.

Harper helps her create a new wardrobe, the colors crisp and bright, tight shirts and loose jeans, hugging hips and breasts, because Steph revels in her new body, one that fits _her_, and she enjoys it all. High heels, unnecessary due to her height but _fun_nonetheless, fill her closet alongside more practical boots and sneakers.

Cullen pierces her ears twice more, and she fills her ears with colors and bright, sparkling creations; hoops and dangles and studs, a thousand times more creative than the simple gold hoops she wore as Art. Necklaces fill a box Leslie gives her, but Steph finds that she doesn't like bracelets (_too tight, reminding her of ropes that burned her skin and chains that pulled her arms right out of their sockets_) or rings. It's fun, getting to explore these things, learn what she likes and dislikes on _herself_, not just on other people.

Leslie rents a piano for the apartment, and Crystal reveals she brought Steph's music, and Steph laughs until she cries and plays again; her fingers clumsy from lack of use, but the music comes, and she plays jazz and songs from musicals so that Cullen and Harper can dance and sing.

She refuses to let go of her muscles; she still works out, even if it's lighter than what she used to push herself towards; she is no longer working for Bruce Wayne's approval, but her own, and she is a thousand times happier as she works.

Months pass, and she puts herself together like a puzzle, one piece at a time. A year passes, and then, one day, she goes in for the final surgery.

She emerges and she looks in the mirror, and she thinks about what that five year old version of herself, cowering in the closet would think of her now, and she smiles at her reflection.

* * *

"It's time to go back," Steph says, and the four of them look up at her, eyes wide.

"What?" Harper asks, eating her breakfast in the kitchen, her spoon digging into a mango that she holds in her hands.

"What?" Cullen repeats, sitting at the kitchen table, studying his textbook.

"Stephanie, are you sure?" Leslie says, reading the paper at the table as well, her eyes concerned. "It's only been three weeks since your surgery…"

Crystal says nothing, but there is support in her stance and in her eyes, and Steph loves her all the more for it.

"I'm sure," Steph says, crossing the room, grabbing Leslie's paper, and flipping to page five.

She points at the article, her hand not even trembling, and she's proud of herself for that small strength, even if it's bravado. "They'll need me," she says. "I can't lie anymore."

The headlines declare, bold as brass and cruel as steel.

**BATMAN DEAD!**

* * *

Crystal and Harper go back first, to secure housing and to prepare the way. Cassandra and Jason willingly move out of the apartment, both of them shaken by the death of Bruce Wayne. The whole family moves to the Manor, depending on each other. There's a new boy; Damian, and Crystal is put in mind of a small, feral cat when she sees him. She hopes Dick Grayson is up to the task of helping him.

Harper quietly submits paperwork to Gotham University for herself and prepares forms for Stephanie Brown, even if, legally, she doesn't exist yet.

Cullen and Leslie come next, returning to Leslie's clinic and preparing to open again, mending the damage that Arthur had done.

And finally, Stephanie boards a plane and goes home.

* * *

Stephanie goes home, and it _is_ home, still, even after all these years. Harper and Cullen are staying with them, and Steph is grateful, for she suspects she will need their kindness and understanding in the days to come.

She puts on a denim pencil skirt and a purple blouse, puts silver hoops in her ears and black leather heels on her feet. Crystal braids her hair into a French-braid, and Steph puts on a brilliantly red shade of lipstick.

She goes to the Manor, her heart racing and her hands shaking.

Alfred opens the door, impeccable as ever. He looks at her, and does not seem to recognize her, even if he frowns slightly, as if he knows he should.

Steph takes a deep breath, and plunges past the point of no return. "Hi Alfie," she says softly.

He looks at her, and _sees_ her suddenly; the blood rushes from his face and he looks like he's seeing a ghost. In a way, Steph supposes, she is. A ghost of the boy that Alfred knew; the lies stripped away and her soul laid out, bare for the world to see.

"I go by Steph now," she bursts out, "I'm sorry I was gone, I just…"

Alfred touches her should, his face gentle. "Leslie helped you?" He asks quietly.

Her throat closed up, Steph nods. "She… she did it to put Cluemaster off, at first. Then I couldn't wake up. And then… then I told her."

"And she brought your mother to you," Alfred says, gently perceptive.

Steph nods again. "I… I know I should have told someone, but I…"

Alfred shakes his head, although he looks pensive and sad. "Miss Brown," he says, and Steph nearly doubles over in tears, hearing the right pronouns out of Alfred for the first time. "You did what you needed to do." He doesn't seem to be judging her, even if he should be. He takes her hand and leads her into the house. "Are you here to see Master Tim and Miss Cassandra?"

Steph swallows the lump in her throat and whispers, "Yes." She can do this. She can _do this_. She is not sixteen anymore; terrified of a man who pretends to be a god and a father who is a monster. She does not fear the sting of Tim's rejection or the loss of his love—she has already felt the first, and she is sure the second has happened in her absence—or the loss of Cass's friendship and trust, again, both are lost to her already, thanks to her silent betrayal. But they deserve the truth; they deserve to know they mourned a lie, and need to mourn no more.

Alfred shows her the way to Tim's room and leaves quickly, giving her privacy as she gathers her courage and knocks.

"Come in!" Tim's voice is absent. Steph closes her eyes, takes a deep breath, and opens the door.

Tim's room in the Manor looks like his old one, albeit a little older—gone are the baseball trophies and comic posters, and her heart twinges a little at that. She feels a wave of guilt as she sees a photo of Jack Drake on the cabinet near her. _I should have been there for him_, she thinks, before pushing it away. It would not due to succumb to guilt until after she's confessed to Tim.

He's not facing her; he is buried in work (she can only guess what) and in his most concentrated state.

"Tim?" She calls out softly, and she wonders if he will recognize her voice.

He glances over his shoulder, clearly surprised. He spins around in his swivel chair, blinking at her.

He looks older. His hair is long, nearly brushing the nape of his neck. His eyes are harder, more sure of himself, than they were when she last saw him, and she wonders which death did that to him.

She wonders what he sees when he looks at her.

Tim frowns, like Alfred, sensing something familiar about her, even if he can't place it. Unlike Alfred, he's forward enough to say something about it. "I'm sorry, but… do I know you?"

Steph smiles her old, tilted smile, and says, softly, "My name is Stephanie Brown." Tim freezes into a statue, and she wonders if he's about to shatter into a thousand pieces. She plunges on anyhow, because she's about to break his world, and she hates herself for it, but it must be done, if either of them are ever to have closure. "You knew me as Art. I… I'm transgender, Tim."

Tim is still as stone, his grey-blue eyes wide as he stares at her, drinking her in. "You… you're alive," he whispers, suddenly, breaking the silence. "You're alive!" He looks like he's about to fall apart, and Steph tries to hold back tears.

"Yes," she says, simply, and waits for his hatred, his anger.

Tim reaches for her, touching her face gently, as if she was a hologram or an illusion, about to fade away as his hand approaches her face. But he touches skin, not air, and he cups her face in his hand, and he looks at her with wonder. "You're alive," he says again, unable to believe it. "How?"

"Leslie restarted my heart," she says, a single tear trailing down her cheek. She's missed him _so much_, even if she doesn't love him like she used to—that old flame is quenched, but the care she had for him is still there. "I was in a coma for months. And when I woke up… I realized I could be myself. For real. No more lies."

"_If you knew the truth, you'd hate me_," Tim whispers, eyes widening, as he repeats the words she'd uttered so long ago, in a pain filled haze. "Ar—_Steph_," he corrects himself, and Steph wonders how much more she can take, as joy fills her abruptly as he says her name _right_, for the first time. "I… I could never hate you."

"You sent me away," she says, quietly. "You broke my heart. I thought you _did_ hate me."

"Never!" Tim protests, although comprehension dawns on him, understanding filing his eyes.

"I'm sorry I left you alone," Steph says, and they both break apart at that, collapsing into each other's arms and crying, clinging to each other like the only port in a storm, and Steph knows it's not over—anger will follow, demands for answers, and maybe there will be hatred at the end, but there might also be forgiveness, and Steph clings to that chance, which she had once thought was out of reach.

* * *

She feels wrung out after her meeting with Tim—emotionally drained and tired, but Cass deserves to know too.

She knocks on the door, and Cass yells, "Coming!" Her voice sounds the same—lilting and light, and Steph freezes in place as Cass wrenches the door open.

Cass is wearing black sweatpants and a Batman tank top, her hair is a wild, uncontrollable mess, and she looks bleary-eyed and sleep-deprived. Steph thinks it's the best thing she's ever seen.

Cass stares at her for one moment, one awful, silent moment as Cass's eyes dart all over her, cataloguing everything about her. Then, suddenly, something _joyful_ blossoms on Cass's face, pure, blissful joy.

"Art!" Cass cries, and tackles Steph to the ground in a hug. Steph, unprepared for the assault, goes down, scraping her elbows on the carpet. Cass squeezes Steph tightly, crying for joy, repeating Steph's old name over and over again.

"Cass," Steph whispers, stunned by Cass's reaction, and hugs Cass back as hard as she can, burying her face in Cass's hair, which smells just like it used to—apples and honey.

"Alive," Cass whispers, finally pulling away. Cass hasn't even seemed to notice that Steph is now wearing a skirt and has breasts, and Steph kind of wonders if she hasn't noticed or just doesn't care. "You're alive," she doesn't let go of Steph, their legs tangled up as they sit up in the hallway, their backs pressed against the walls. Cass grabs her hand and clings to it, as if, should she let go, Steph will disappear forever.

"It's Steph now," she blurts, happy to see Cass, but wanting to never hear the name "Art" pass from Cass's lips again. "Uh, I'm a girl."

Cass nods, staring at Steph's face, drinking in the changes. "Okay," she says. "Steph."

"I missed you," Steph says, voice almost too soft to hear.

"Are you staying?" Cass asks, sounding oddly lonely.

Steph swallows back tears, and nods. "If you want me to."

Cass hugs her again, and Steph closes her eyes and clings to her best friend, and realizes that _maybe_, her hopes hadn't been pointless.

* * *

If only everyone else was as simple as Cass.

Barbara is furious; furious at Leslie for the faked-death, furious at Steph for not trusting her, furious at Bruce for the security cameras (which she hadn't known about!), furious at Crystal for keeping the secret, and furious at Harper and Cullen for assisting Steph in her "ridiculous plan". But at the end of her long rant, Barbara hugs her tightly.

"Don't you _ever_!" Barbara punctuates her point by jabbing Steph in the chest. "Do that to us again!"

"Promise," Steph says, trying not to seem as terrified as she feels.

"Okay then," Babs says, taking a deep breath. "So you'll need paperwork, won't you? What do you want to do?"

"I was thinking college," Steph says. "But you don't have to do that, Leslie knows some people…"

"I'll do better," Babs says, brushing off her concerns with a literal wave of her hand. "So, I'm thinking… cousin to Arthur Brown, unless you want me to resurrect you?"

"It's fine," Steph says immediately. "I can be a cousin."

"Hmm…" Babs says, beginning to type. "Let's keep most of your information similar… I'll whip up some fake parents, who died… Crystal adopted you… oh, let's just make it when she went to Thailand…" She clicked on something and resumed typing. "Do you have a middle name?"

"Crystal," Steph replies. "And Babs? _Thank you_."

"No problem," Babs smiles at her. "So, are you going to be Spoiler again?"

Steph shakes her head. "I need to find my footing," she says, although she longs for a purple cloak and the rooftops of Gotham. "I need to know who Stephanie Brown is in Gotham before I can figure out that part."

Babs squeezes her hand. "You're always welcome with the Birds of Prey, Steph," she says. "As Spoiler, or as Steph, or as whatever new name you want to give yourself."

Steph chokes up again, and she hugs Babs as tightly as she can.

* * *

Steph never really knew Dick Grayson. She can tell he doesn't like her though—he is not happy about her hurting Tim and Cass, he doesn't like her faking her death. She can't tell if he doesn't like the whole 'transgender' thing, but she likes to think it's more of the 'you hurt my family' thing rather than any prejudice on his part, which the others seem to believe, so she understands. Dick Grayson loves fiercely, with all his heart, and he protects the ones he loves. And Stephanie Brown has never earned his trust or his affection, but has harmed people who have, and so he watches her carefully.

Damian Wayne is another story altogether. Steph doesn't know if the boy knows what the word "transgender" means, or if he knows she is one. He uses the right pronouns and treats her with a general disdain that she gathers is fairly universal for most people. Steph finds herself fond of him in the way of a cankerous old man—he's amusingly touchy and clearly needs a friend. She introduces him to Nell Little and Colin Wilkins from Leslie's clinic by arranging for Selina (who was very upset with Steph for playing dead, but very understanding about the need to transition away from Gotham) to essentially lure them into a trap that functions as a play-date. It's a success, if Steph has to say so, and she smiles as Damian tentatively makes friends.

And then there is Jason Todd.

Steph knew Jason, knew _about_ Jason, that is, ever since she learned Tim's name. Amusingly, it appears that Jason and she learned about each other the same way—fueled by nostalgia and mourning and bitter warnings. The Robin who didn't obey orders and the Robin who didn't listen.

"So you're Stephanie," he says, on her third visit to the Manor since her return.

"And you're Jason," she replies, looking at him. He's tall—over six feet and well built. His hair is black and his eyes are swirled with green and blue, and his skin is lighter than Dick's and Damian's but darker than Tim's. He wears a leather jacket and combat boots, and she marvels at his presence, and is quietly grateful for him using her real name instead of the name he has doubtlessly heard her referred to by ever since his return.

He grins at her, and offers her a can of beer. "Welcome to the dead Robins club."

Steph laughs until she cries, and she realizes that she _likes_ him.

* * *

Steph enrolls in college and she _loves it_. Harper is her roommate, and they both join the Pre-Med track together, and join the LGBT groups on campus.

Steph is a music major, Pre-Med track, and people stare at her like she's crazy, but she plays her piano every day, calming her nerves and soothing her soul.

Harper, far more practical, is a chemistry major, but Steph is pretty sure that it's just an excuse to learn how to make explosives, just like she's certain that the criminology and psychology courses are to prepare for a vigilante trial.

Harper meets Carrie Kelley, a theater major who rocks a pixie-cut and green short shorts, and they hit it off well. Steph doesn't meet anybody, but when Carrie asks, Steph thinks of Cass smiling at her, Steph freezes briefly before shaking her head.

She visits Ms. Nolan, her old piano teacher, who recognizes her in an instant and forces her to play the piano for her after crying and scolding. Steph plays _Country Gardens_, and after a while Ms. Nolan sits down on the bench next to her, and the two of them start to play the duet version together, fingers tripping up and down across the keyboard.

* * *

"I'm an awful person," Steph says to Jason dully. It's a low day—she has them from time to time. PTSD, her therapist says; a gift from Black Mask in addition to the scars that web her torso and back.

"No you're not," Jason says, frowning. She wonders what he sees—does he see the duct tape that holds her together, stopping her from falling apart?

She had been so good, her first few days in Gotham. But her low days returned, throwing her back down into the familiar waters of self-pity and self-hatred. She struggles, trying to breathe, on those days, which are thankfully few and far between.

"I am though," she says bitterly. "Selfish, cowardly, lying…"

"Stop it!" Jason barks, glaring at her now. "Steph, listen to me, okay? Yeah, maybe it was selfish. Maybe it wasn't the brave thing to do. But guess what? It doesn't matter, and it doesn't make you a bad person. This," he points at her, and she knows he's talking about her transition, "_This_ was something you needed. You _needed_ to stop living that lie. It wasn't fucking healthy. You're allowed to be selfish when it's about your health. You're allowed to be selfish, and worry about others afterwards. You did what you had to do."

"I shoulda—"

"Maybe," Jason cuts her off. "But guess what? We can't change the past. We've all got regrets. We've all made mistakes. We've all been selfish. I killed a bunch of people. Cass killed that one guy. Tim and Dick went with Bruce on a life-changing yearlong field trip and left Cass _alone_ in Gotham after the crisis before last. We've all fucked up. We've all hurt each other. But we suck it up, apologize, and don't pull a Bruce."

"Pull a Bruce?" Steph isn't sure if she wants to know.

"Don't fucking keep making the same mistake over and over again," Jason says, crossing his arms. "You should have trusted them? Trust them next time. Simple as that. You're not an awful person, Brown. You felt threatened, you felt scared, you felt you couldn't trust anybody, so you did what you had to do to pull yourself back together. And it worked. So stop thinking about "should'ves" and look forward. And now you've made me philosophical and shit. Thanks for that. We are now going to go throw things at pigeons until you feel better."

"What did the pigeons ever do to you?" Steph mutters half-heartedly, following him anyway.

"They're rats with wings. No other reason is needed," Jason replies, leading her away.

* * *

"Will you play for me?" Cass asks, curled up on the couch in Crystal's apartment.

Steph blinks. "Uh, sure?"

Cass shrugs, seeing her confusion. "I never heard you play in person. Just recordings."

Steph doesn't know how to respond to that—she wonders what Cass will see when she plays.

Steph plays _The Chevy Chase: Fox Trot_, and the music _dances_. The melody sings out, crisp and clear, and Steph throws everything she has into it. Fast and cheerful, dance like and rag-time, Steph plays for Cass, and Cass alone.

Steph's never played the song better.

Cass stares at her as the song ends. "You're so happy," she whispers, sitting down on the small bench next to her, there thighs touching. Steph tries to control her breathing, and she turns her face to face Cass's. Cass touches Steph's cheek, as if searching for something.

Their faces are incredibly close, and Steph's heart is racing, and they stare into each other's eyes, and a part of Steph goes _fuck it_, and she bends down just a little so that she can kiss Cass, a simple peck on the lips.

Cass kisses her back, and Steph feels giddy as Cass kisses her again and again, and Steph and Cass end the day as girlfriends and nothing has ever felt better than thinking those words.

* * *

Of course, nothing lasts forever.

Steph learns the news from Babs, who sends her an email in the middle of her Philosophy of Heroism class.

_Bruce is back. Not in town. Doesn't know about you. Will tell others to keep it quiet. Thought you should know. –O_

She can barely keep still through the rest of the class, needing to get out—the walls are shrinking around her, pressing in on all sides.

She flees as soon as the professor dismisses them, running until she reaches Doctor Leslie's clinic.

"Stephanie!" Leslie says, eyes wide with surprise as Steph stumbles in, cheeks flushed and out of breath, panting desperately. "What on Earth—"

"Bruce is back," Steph says, desperate and confused, hating herself for being upset that he's alive, oh god, Cass and Tim will be so happy, but she's upset, she's a monster, she's awful…

Leslie is there in an instant, wrapping her arms around her, "Oh my dear girl," she whispers, soothing and gentle, rocking Steph slightly, pressing Steph's face against her shoulder. "Shhhh," Leslie whispers, petting Steph's hair. Steph cries, clutching Leslie's white coat with her fingers, scrunching up the starchy fabric, wishing she could just stay there forever, safe in Leslie's arms.

She imagines what Bruce will say when he learns that she faked her death, that she stayed away to transition, that she lied and let them all suffer while she fixed herself, selfishly putting herself together while they all fell apart. She shakes and sobs and cries, just as scared of Bruce as she was the night he broke into her apartment when she was sixteen. It's not fair, it's not right, and she sobs all this into Leslie's shoulder, hating herself the whole time.

* * *

The weeks crawl by slowly after she gets that message from Oracle.

Bruce returns to the public eye, unveiling "Batman Inc." and announcing teams of heroes, wandering Europe and practically bathing in the publicity. She wonders how much he hates it.

Dick is still Batman, Damian is still Robin, Jason is still the Red Hood, Tim is still Red Robin, and Cass is still Batgirl. Bruce doesn't change that, at least, and Steph is oddly grateful for that safe harbor in this tumultuous storm that Bruce Wayne's return is. She finds her old purple cloak, hidden under floorboards in her room, and she touches the old curtains, laughing as she remembers a terrified child and a desperate hope to be free of her father.

Steph irrationally spends an hour every day upending her and Harper's dorm in search of surveillance, convinced that Bruce is invading her privacy again, watching her every move. It's ridiculous, it's nonsensical, it's paranoid, but he _was_out to get her once, and she needs to do it, to reassure herself of her security.

It's stifling, it's strangling, it's like the whole world is now staring at her, analyzing her every move again, as if Bruce's mere presence has made her sixteen and scared again. Small noises make her jump, and suddenly, the walls of her dorm room start pressing in on her from all sides, but she stops leaving it because outside is worse, it's full of shadows for Bruce to hide, and his face is gleaming at her from every magazine, from every billboard, it's everywhere and she writhes beneath his gaze, feeling his judgment burning her even though she doesn't even know if he's even aware of her survival, or if he would even care if he did. There was no memorial in the cave, there was no sign of her there, nothing to show that she had lived and fought by his side—not as Spoiler, not as Robin. (Cass showed her the memorial she had made, but it still cuts to see Bruce's disdain for her; the forgotten Robin, the unnamed soldier.)

Bruce is far away, she knows this, but once exams are over she throws herself on the first bus to Metropolis, leaving a note for her mother and Harper, a text for Jason and Tim, and a voice mail for Cass, her chest painfully tight and her stomach in knots as she leaves it, stuttering and tripping over her own tongue as she tries to justify herself for leaving again. She hovers on the verge of a panic attack the whole bus ride, her throat closing and her eyes watering. She plays _Für Elise_ on her iPod over and over again, and as the familiar bars of the bagatelle repeat themselves, she feels the stress slowly seep away as her distance from Bruce's city increases with every measure.

She arrives in Metropolis, which is breathtaking to see. The air is clean, the buildings are beautiful, and she feels light, away from Bruce's renewed shadow, looming and dark, threatening to destroy this new life she's built for herself.

A man approaches her at the bus station, smiling awkwardly as he shuffles forward. He looks to be about six feet tall, but his posture is poor, so he seems shorter, slouching in on himself in a way that projects poor self-esteem and modesty. His face is goofily pleasant, with thick glasses and a sweet, smile, with his hair neatly combed back. He wears a suit and carries a briefcase, and a gold ring rests on his finger, gleaming brightly as he waves at her.

"Ms. Brown?" He asks. "I'm Clark. Barbara called me, said you needed a place to stay while you're in town."

Steph's heart nearly explodes in gratitude for Babs, who hadn't questioned Steph's burning need to leave Gotham and not to be contacted, merely pressed an untraceable phone and credit card into Steph's shaking hands and hugged her tight, telling her not to worry, she wasn't being selfish, she was just looking after herself.

Steph wishes she could believe it, but she does it anyway, because she is awful and selfish and she thinks she'd die, spending another day in Bruce's city.

"I…" Steph stutters, unsure of what to say. Clark beams at her and picks up her luggage, easily balancing her small bag in his huge arms.

"Lois and I have a spare bed," he tells her kindly, his voice touched by a gentle Midwestern accent that's so inoffensively bland it could belong to a newscaster. "You know my cousin Conner, right? He stays there sometimes."

"Conner?" Steph squeaks. "Conner _Kent_?"

His eyes twinkle at her, behind the thick glasses, and she _looks_at him, and sees how startling, familiarly, blue they are. "That's right!" His smile is less goofily sweet now, it's small, but reassuring and it's _kind_ and it's _good_, and Steph feels light-headed, because _Superman_ just told her who he is—like she was worthy of trust, when he didn't know her at all, and he was Bruce's _friend_, and—

Her breath catches and the world spins as she doubles over, panting desperately for air as she realizes that Superman has probably told Bruce where she is, _what_ she is, he probably knows that she's a liar and a coward and a failure and—

"Stephanie? Stephanie _breathe_!" Firm hands are on her shoulders, and the voice is kind and gentle. Steph shudders and gasps, oxygen properly filling her lungs. Her knees give way, and only Clark's inhumanly strong hands keep her upright. Her face is wet, her vision is blurred, but she can make out the honest, raw concern on Clark's face. She can feel her heart pounding in her chest, threatening to crack her ribs, and she's trembling from head to toe. "You're safe," Clark tells her, something about his face and voice makes her think that he _understands_. "I won't let anyone hurt you while I'm here."

Steph tries to speak, but her tongue is useless and clumsy, so she stays quiet. Clark guides her to a nearby bench and sits her down, pressing a water bottle into her hands. She drinks a little, and tries to speak again, gripping the plastic cylinder tightly in her hands to stop them from shaking. "Does Bruce know?" She rasps, looking at the pattern in the tile floor instead of Clark.

Clark shakes his head, taking her hand. "Believe it or not, he doesn't need to know everything. No matter what he thinks."

And Steph laughs, her shoulders trembling and tears filling her eyes as she sits on a bench with Superman, running from Batman, and it's absurd, it's ridiculous, and she laughs and she cries, and Clark gently hugs her, giving her the silent comfort she needs, and she suddenly realizes why it is that everyone adores and trusts Superman. It's because, with the world falling apart, with crime happening and injustice raging, he's still willing to take a moment, and hug a teenage girl from Crime Alley who needs that small comfort more than anything.

* * *

'Lois' turns out to be Lois Lane, a five foot four woman who wears heels at all times but carries a pair of tennis shoes just in case. She wears sharp skirt suits and carries a large black leather purse at all times, which probably contains both the secrets of the universe and enough weight to classify it as a weapon. She speaks rapidly, her Metropolis accent sharpening the edges of her constantans and swallowing her vowels, which contrasted amusingly to Clark's Midwestern drawl. Lois Lane is tough, bursting with wry humor and sarcasm, smart, and principled.

Steph wants to be her when she grows up.

Clark and Lois own a nice two-bedroom apartment, decorated with newspaper articles by both of them, both in frames and taped to the walls. Lois's Pulitzer sits proudly on a shelf, and a cork board hangs on the wall in the living room, where Clark and Lois pin information about their latest investigation.

The apartment is homey in feel, painted warm colors and full of comfortable furniture.

The room Steph stays in is painted a warm yellow, the color of sunshine, Steph thinks, amused. The bedspread is yellow with blue flowers, and there's a framed print of a vase of blue irises hanging on the wall.

Clark cooks dinner, the smell of meatloaf drifting out from the kitchen, while Lois asks Steph questions about school, Gotham, Harper, and Cass. It's soothing, to talk about her literature class and her philosophy class with Lois, and to talk about the ridiculous things her classmates do, and Lois responds in kind, regaling Steph with stories about her own college days. Clark pipes in as well, and Steph laughs, feeling more comfortable with these two virtual strangers than she had under the threat of Bruce's scrutiny in her own home, and she loves it.

The next day she meets Kara, who is _Supergirl_, and who shows her Metropolis with all the enthusiastic force of a hurricane. She shows Steph the coffee shops and the museums and chatters feely, either unaware of who Steph is, or uncaring, and Steph goes dancing with her, the beat of the bass carrying them through the night as Steph _lets go_.

A week later, she goes back to Lois and Clark's apartment, laughing as she texts Cass and Tim, and Conner is there, standing in the middle of the room. He stares at her, blue eyes boring holes into her, and she realizes _he doesn't know who she is_, which is both liberating and terrifying, and she's not sure what to do, and she stares at him, and she waits for the old jealousy to stir in her stomach, but there is nothing, and she realizes, suddenly, that she's over the hurt of her childhood, over the pain of that first, lost love, over the broken heart that she once thought would surely rip her in two and leave her forever broken.

"Kon?" She asks, and she hates how small she sounds.

"Do I—" Kon begins, his expression confused.

"It's me!" She interrupts, hoping to cut off anything he might say by pre-emptively warning him. "Spoiler." The name is heavy in her mouth, but it's _hers_, and it's infinitely less painful than _Arthur_ or _Art_. "I'm… I go by Steph, now." She feels her fingernails dig into her palm and the world spins around her slightly, a panic attack lurking at the edge of her mind, threatening to overwhelm her and drag her down again. She wonders where Lois and Clark are.

_Understand_, she begs him with all her heart and mind. _Please, don't make me explain. I don't know if I can. I don't know if I'm strong enough._

"Weren't you supposed to be dead?" Kon blurts, instead of any of the other dreaded phrases or pronouns, and it blows away her anxieties, somehow.

"Weren't _you_?" Steph retorts weakly, giddy with relief.

Conner moves, suddenly, and pulls her into a tight, super-strong hug. "Good to see you alive," he says when he breaks away, and Steph realizes that both of them are misty-eyed and tight-throated. Conner clears his throat. "And I, uh, I like the new look. It, uh, suits you. Better. Not that you looked bad before or anything! I just, uh, you look. Happier."

Steph laughs, and half of her wonders if she could have had this all before, saved them all the pain that her death caused, but she banishes the thought. It is not the time for "what-ifs" and "could-have-beens". Jason is right—she will not let those take over her life and ruin what happiness she can find in the world made by the choices she _did_ make. Not when it's just starting to fit together.

* * *

Steph spends another week in Metropolis after her meeting with Conner. But she packs her bags and moves on, curious to see more of this country. All of her travel was in Thailand—and before her death, she had never left Gotham and its suburbs—Bludhaven was the furthest she had ever gone, in those stumbling early days of vigilantism.

Lois and Clark hug her goodbye and tell her to stay in touch, and Kara gives her a slip of paper with an email address and a phone number on it, and Steph leaves, considerably calmer than she had arrived. She listens to _Summer Highland Falls_ by Billy Joel, this time, and she smiles, her fingers beating out the patterns of the notes on her thighs as the roads fly by.

She goes to Central City, walking the streets with her headphones on and her music playing, the gentle noise of the piano carrying her through the bustling crowds. The buildings are shorter here, which is amusing to her—she's used to a skyline blurred with skyscrapers, which, although they exist in this town of speedsters and rogues, are still less common than Gotham or Metropolis.

She admires the statues of Flashes and visits local eateries, avoiding anywhere the Rogues are supposed to frequent. The Rogues of Central are supposed to be… less harsh about deviations than Gotham, but the echoes of slurs still ring in her ears every time she spots a colorful uniform. Besides, she knows one of them killed Tim's father, and she doesn't know what to think of people like that, even if they're supposed to be better than the ones in Gotham. It's irrational, she knows, since the cops of Gotham are just as harsh as the criminals, and she doesn't avoid police hangouts like she avoids Rogues, but she recalls people claiming that Cluemaster and his 'gimmicks' (what a thing to call the way he played with people's lives) belonged in Central, not Gotham, and she doesn't want to see people like her father; she doesn't want to know the people who her father might have called friends, in a different world.

She goes to the Flash Museum, after a few days of resisting the temptation. But Central is hardly a tourist town, and there's less to do here than in Metropolis, so she gives in. She wanders the exhibits, wondering if there'd ever be a place like this in Gotham, for Bats. She wonders if she'd be mentioned at all. _Spoiler: utter failure of a hero_. Maybe she'd be a footnote, as a fill-in Robin, keeping the cape warm while Tim languished, grounded by Jack.

She then spots a familiar face, and she freezes, because he's supposed to be _dead_.

"Bart?" She croaks in shock.

He spins around to stare at her, eyes wide and hair in that messy disarray that is so painfully familiar from her precious and rare moments with Young Justice.

He tilts his head. "Who—?"

"Spoiler," she whispers, numb at the sight of him. It's worse than Conner, because she at least had known Conner was alive. It's like seeing a ghost, and she wonders, with a stab of regret, if it is like this for everyone else, when they see her. "Weren't you dead?"

He squints at her. "Weren't _you_ dead?"

Her lips are frozen, and her tongue feels clumsy. "No. My dad was after me, so they faked it."

He looks at her, and he _knows_, she can see it, and she feels so grateful, for she doesn't have to say a word. "Tim didn't know?"

Mutely, she shakes her head, realizing just how many people Tim had lost, so close to each other, one after another. How many funerals did he have to attend? No wonder he was so different, with that look in his eye, that one that says there is nothing to lose any more, even as things rebuild around him, as the world mends itself from the Crises that shook it.

She grips Bart in a hug. "We've got to stop dying," she says, voice shaking with tears she wants to shed for a boy who buried three friends and two fathers so close together. "I don't think he can take too much more of it."

Bart hugs her back, his body unnaturally warm, and whispers. "Yeah. I don't think he can either."

* * *

Bart introduces her to Wally as a friend, and she doesn't mention Gotham or Dick at all, not sure if she can trust Wally not to tell Dick, and then Dick not to tell Bruce. Linda is lovely, and the twins are a terror, racing around the house in a blur of activity.

She and Bart eat at a quiet sandwich shop, Steph with her BLT and Bart with his Reuben, and they talk about a TV show they both watch, because Steph hates talking about superhero stuff; it makes her miss it far too much, and she's still not sure if she'll ever be ready to don her cape again.

Suddenly, two figures appear by their table, looming and brightly colored and _there_. Steph reels back, the familiar feeling of an impending panic attack latching onto her brain, needing just one push to fall over the edge.

A man grins at her widely, slipping into the seat next to Bart. "Hey kiddo!"

"Hey Tricks!" Bart grins, continuing to wolf down his sandwich. "Hey Hartley!"

Steph is frozen, staring at these two men, all of her alarms going off inside her head. She swallows the mouthful of sandwich in her mouth, which now tastes like ash and is just as hard to force down. It inches down her throat slowly, but she doesn't reach for her glass of soda like she wants to.

"Who's your friend?" Harley asks, looking at her, curious. Steph fights down the urge to run; she knows him, knows he's a Rogue, he and the other man, and Steph needs _out_, but she can't run, because they'll follow, and she doesn't want that, even more than she doesn't want their gazes on her, dissecting her and tearing her apart from the inside out, realizing what she is and who she is and ripping her apart.

"That's Steph," Bart says, oblivious to her, pale and frozen like a statue, staring wide eyed at the Rogues in front of her, frozen like a rabbit that's been spotted by a predator.

"You okay?" The one named Hartley asks, voice low and soft, oddly soothing and musical—something about it reminds her of Cass.

Steph can't speak; her muscles are on lock-down, and she tries to take slow, even breaths, but it doesn't seem to be working, and she tries to ignore just how _orange_ James's outfit is.

"James," Hartley says, quietly. "We should leave. I'm sorry, Miss," he says to her, and he sounds like he almost means it. "Didn't mean to bother you."

James opens his mouth to protest, but Hartley grabs him and pulls him away.

Once they're gone, she can move again, and she doubles over, clumsy fingers opening her bag and withdrawing the brown paper bag she keeps in there for emergencies. She opens it up and starts breathing into it heavily, pins and needles arcing up and down her body as the panic attack slowly fades.

"You okay?" Bart asks, once her breathing regulates and she slumps down in her chair, the paper bag still held numbly in her hands. She nods, silently, even though it's a lie, and he can see it, plain as day. "Sorry, I should have—"

"It's okay," she mutters, her mouth as dry as the desert. "I'm just… he wore so much orange…"

"Ahh," Bart nods. "I get it. Triggers," he says, wiggling his fingers at her, like a stage magician distracting someone from a trick. "We've… we've all got 'em. Me? Guns are what does it."

"Guns?" She asks, latching on to the conversation, hoping it will distract her sufficiently.

"Uh-huh," he nods. "Deathstroke shot me, y'know. Through the knee. I… I couldn't run. And I… I felt so _helpless_."

Steph bends her head, closing her eyes. "I just… orange was _his_ color. And… Black Mask… he knew it. He…"

Bart touched her hand. "It's okay," he says. "You don't have to justify it." He looks at her, serious and well-meaning, and she realizes that it isn't just her and Tim who've grown up. They all have. All those children, playing hero… the boy who had proclaimed "we're young, but we're just us" wasn't so young any more. And a part of her wanted to cry, because of the price that growing up had wrought on them all, but a part of her was in awe, because she saw a hero now, not just a boy playing hero, and she realized that the world was in good hands.

A funny thing about Stephanie Brown, my friends. She had packed away her cape, she had left behind her mask, and she had ditched the name of Spoiler. Robin had been torn away, and it stood in silent memorial in a cave, hidden away from the main story. She thought she was selfish, she thought she was cruel, and she still hated herself with almost every last bone in her body, blind to one simple fact; she was a hero as well, just as much as Bart or Tim or Connor or any of the other children who went to war and lost themselves.

* * *

Steph and Bart are sitting in a park, eating hotdogs and drinking lemonade, when Cassie arrives. She's there, floating down from the sky, a lasso on her lap, wearing a tight red shirt emblazoned with the Wonder Woman's logo, pale blue jeans, and thick-soled black boots. Silver bracelets gleam at her wrists, and her smile is bright. "Bart!" She greets. "And… you're Steph, right?" Steph stares. Cassie shrugs. "Conner told me," she says, and Steph silently thanks Conner, for saving her having to tell another person.

Cassie settles down next to them on the grass, and at the end of it, she invites Steph to come with her, to join her as she returns to Themyscira. Steph freezes, gratitude unfolding in her chest as she realizes that they would let her, that she _counted_, in the ways that the Amazons care about, and who would know better than them.

She says yes, without thinking, without hesitation, and Cassie helps her pack her bags. She kisses Bart on the cheek and Cassie takes her hand and the two of them head out.

"Thank you," she says to Cassie as they fly away. "For being there for Tim. While I wasn't."

Cassie looks at her. "He's my friend too," she says kindly. "And you couldn't, Steph. You needed to look after yourself first: there's nothing wrong with that."

Steph looks away, still not sure if she believes the words, even though it had been how she justified it, justified Thailand and her absence, even though she had heard it from almost everyone.

Steph meets Diana, who embraces her tightly and calls her brave. Steph wanders Themyscira, feeling weightless, and she feels like she _belongs_. The women here don't judge her; they know her story, know she was born with a different name, and they don't care. She's not an Amazon, but she's a _woman_, and that's all they care about, and it's so _wonderful_. There are other women like her here, and they swap stories, and Steph finds more compassion here than she thought she could ever see among strangers and warriors, and she almost feels at home. She understands now, what she's heard said. "Nobody loves as much as Wonder Woman".

She meets Donna as well, who is calm and sweet, who spars with her and shares stories of her days with the Teen Titans. Steph loves it here; loves the feeling of belonging. But…

She misses Cass. She misses Babs. She misses Tim, and Jason, and Harper, and her mother, and Dick, and Damian, and she misses _home_, and she even misses it without fear, and when she realizes that, she knows that it's time.

She calls Cass. "I'm coming home," she says, and her hands don't shake. She doesn't regret leaving, she believes that she needed this escape, but she's homesick now and she wants to go back to Gotham—she can do this. Diana called her brave, Bart told her she should not be ashamed, and Lois called her strong. She can do this.

Cass laughs, a joyful, beautiful sound. "Are you better?" Cass asks, soft and gentle and kind, and Steph realizes just how much she loves her.

"Yes. I…" She thinks of Bruce, and she nearly changes her mind, but she straightens her shoulders and sets her jaw, because she can't, won't, _refuses to_run from him forever. "I'm not fixed, Cass. I'm still messed up. But I'm good enough to come home again."

"We're all broken," Cass reminds her gently. "And… you don't have to come back. If you need more time."

"I don't," Steph says, although she loves Cass so much for saying she doesn't have to. "I miss you."

"Miss you too."

"I'll see you when I get home."

"Yes. See you then."

There's a long pause, as they both wait for the other to hang up. Steph pulls away first, after a long moment, and presses the button.

"You'll be fine," Donna says, smiling at her, when Steph tells them the news of her incoming departure.

"I know," she whispers. "I just… need to believe that."

Diana flies her to the mainland in her invisible plane, which is actually a thing, and Steph is bewildered the whole time.

* * *

Steph gets off the train, her heart lighter and her phone bursting with new phone numbers and pictures.

They meet her at the station; all of them. Cass and Harper and Tim and Jason and Cullen and Babs and Leslie and Mom and Renee and Kate and Helena and Dinah and even Dick and Damian are all there, smiling at her and hugging her, none of them hating her for leaving, and all of them _there_. Steph hugs them and tries not to cry, and Cass kisses her in front of everyone and Steph smiles so wide she thinks that her face will fall off.

She goes back to her apartment and plays the piano, and listens to an audiobook with Cass. (They're now listening to _Pride and Prejudice_, on Jason's insistence that they need _culture_.) Harper helps her paint her nails eggplant-purple, and tells her all the gossip that Steph has missed.

Babs invites Steph and Cass to dinner with the Birds, and Steph goes and meets Zinda Blake for the first time, who is possibly the friendliest fighting drunk that Steph has ever met. Helena cooks, white fish in some sort of Italian sauce that Steph's never had. Dinah pours wine, not caring that Steph is twenty, and they all chat and laugh and swap stories.

Babs gives Steph a box, a simple white clothes box, wrapped in a gauzy purple ribbon. "Open it," Babs says.

Steph does, and she gasps as she stares at what's inside. It's a Spoiler costume—tailored for a woman instead of a teenage boy. The fabric of the cape is soft to the touch, and Steph nearly buries her face in it to hide her expression.

"I know you're not sure if you want to come back," Babs says quietly. "But I want you to know you'd be welcome. And that you can come back at any time."

Steph grips the purple cloth tightly in her hands, knuckles white, and nods to Babs in thanks, not trusting her voice. Cass reaches over and touches it, commenting on how nice it looks, while Babs assures them that it's fireproof and how the chest piece is bulletproof, and how _somebody_ (Helena) can get one like it _whenever_they decide to start behaving sensibly and stop flaunting their abs like a _showoff_.

* * *

Bruce comes back to Gotham without alerting anyone, which shouldn't surprise Babs, but it does anyway, because Bruce has been dogged by the media all over the globe, and you'd think they would issue a warning. But no.

"Barbara," he says, dressed in his Batman costume.

"Bruce," she replies, wearing a Nightwing sweatshirt and pajama pants.

"How is… everyone?" He asks, tentative. Babs rolls her eyes so hard she thinks they might fall out. He has spoken to Tim, since he's returned, and Dick and Damian. The others, not so much.

Babs grins at her computer monitor, safe from Bruce's gaze. "Dick and Damian are doing well; Damian finally has some friends and that's great, so Dick's finally relaxing enough to go and let Wally and Roy come over for a visit. Kate is still ignoring pretty much everyone; she's broken up with Renee, which is probably for the best, since that relationship wasn't exactly healthy, but now Kate's dating Maggie Sawyer, and Renee asked Helena out to dinner yesterday, which is fairly surprising, but we'll see how that goes. Jason and Connor Hawke are apparently a thing, and Jason's therapy is going well, which is great news since we have enough issues going around without his adding to everything…"

"_Barbara_," Bruce growls, and Babs suppresses a grin, surprised he held out that long.

"Be more specific then," she says dryly. She eyes Bruce, suddenly. "You heard about Steph, right?" The odds are fairly good—Steph met up with a lot of superheroes over the course of her trip, and it's not like Bruce is source-less, even without her supplying that particular tidbit of information.

"Who?" Bruce asks, and Babs stares. Steph has been home for almost a year now, and Bruce has been back for about six months of it, and Bruce _doesn't know_?

"You don't know," she says, shocked.

"Who is Steph?" Bruce asks, and Babs wants to curse.

And she explains, trying to emphasize the isolation and the trauma, trying to make sure that Bruce _understands_, but Bruce stands up halfway through her explanation, and growls "_Arthur_," and leaves, his cape flashing in the light as he leaves through the window.

"It's _Steph_!" Babs desperately yells, hoping to remind Bruce that _misgendering is bad_.

She grabs her communicator and patches herself in. "Cass! Where's Steph?"

"Batcave," Cass says, puzzled. "Tim and her sparring. Why?"

"Bruce is on the warpath. Get _everyone_down there—maybe an audience will stop him from doing something we'll all regret him doing."

Cass hisses, and Babs cuts in. "Cass. Let Steph handle this. You guys are there to watch, to remind her she's not alone. But Steph needs to face him." _Ideally, it would be when Bruce_**_isn't_**_irrationally angry at her, but…_

"Call Dinah," Cass says flatly. "You should be here."

"Agreed," Babs says, before she dials up her girlfriend. "Dinah? We're going to the Cave tonight."

* * *

Cass runs off in the middle of the sparring match and Steph can't think why, but Tim makes a particularly complicated kick and Steph gets distracted again.

Sparring is something Steph's been doing more of lately—she's trying to get back into patrol shape. She's still not sure if she's ready to come back to the world of heroes, but she wants to be prepared if and when she makes up her mind.

She knocks Tim down, and wins the match. "Gotcha," she says, grinning at him, and he grins back up at her. She offers him her hand up, and he lets her pull him to his feet.

She then realizes that the cave is suddenly crowded—it looks like the entire clan is present, expressions anxious. She frowns, and so does Tim. "What's going on—?"

"_Arthur_," a growl straight from her nightmares freezes her in spot as effectively as a tub of ice water.

She slowly turns, and, sure enough, there is Bruce Wayne, dressed in his Batman outfit, minus the cowl, glowering at her with his fullest glare.

Steph says nothing, just stares at him, and Bruce growls. "You faked your death," he snaps. "You ran away, boy, and I'll—"

There are worlds in which Stephanie Brown is born with that name, born with the parts that she suffered so much to get in this world. There are worlds in which she hates the name "Stephanie" almost as much as she hates "Arthur," and changes the name and the rejects her assigned gender (never to Arthur—there is no world in which she is born Arthur that she keeps that name.) There are worlds in which she has wonderful parents and worlds where she has no parents, there are worlds in which she has siblings, or when she is alone in the world. There are worlds where she is Robin, Spoiler, Batgirl, Nightwing, Batman, Flamebird, Batwoman, Red Hood, Red X, even worlds where she is a Blue Lantern. There are worlds where she's born a Meta, worlds where she dies too young, worlds where she lives, worlds where she dies, worlds where she's not even blonde, worlds where she's a killer, a thief, an assassin, a villain.

But every world has this moment. A moment where people assume her smiles mean forgiveness, her hope means naivety, and her belief means that she is unthinking and childish, and they _push her_. And sometimes she lets them push and push and push but she will always, in every world, be pushed past her breaking point, where her trust has been abused too much, when everything is too much, and she _gives in_.

Her palm connects with Bruce's cheek with a ringing _slap_, leaving finger marks on his face, bright and stinging red. She had pushed every inch of her strength behind it, and Bruce reels back, blinking and shocked, and Steph is shaking again, not in fear, not on the edge of another breakdown, but in _anger_.

"Fuck you," she says, her blue eyes gleaming. "You don't get to judge me. Not when you pushed me there in the first place."

She can feel the eyes of everyone on her, but she doesn't _care_. "You treated me like shit. You refused to trust me. I was your _Robin_, and you didn't trust me. You never gave a damn about me or my well-being, so stop like you were affected by what I did!" She takes a step forward, and there is fire in her eyes and venom in her voice, and lesser men than Bruce Wayne would cower under the force of her lecture—her words are like stones, and she throws them out with all the force she can muster. "You just brushed me aside, forgot all about me except as a lesson on not to screw up like I did. You threw me aside as soon as something better showed up and offered itself to you, to be Robin, and you didn't even consider what I felt! You spied on me, broke into my house, threatened me, and I'm supposed to feel guilty that I didn't trust _you_? Tim, Cass, Babs… them I'll feel guilty about. But _you_?" Her voice rises, her words echoing off the tall ceiling of the cave, disturbing the bats. "You're the reason I didn't feel safe transitioning here! You're the reason I _had_ to go away! So don't you dare judge me you bastard. Don't you _dare_."

Silence fills the cave after that. And then Jason "you fucking asshole" Todd starts to _applaud_.

* * *

Steph storms off after her rant was done. Cass watches her, sensing that Steph does not want to be followed [_fury, relief, joy_]—at least, for now. Cass looks around at the rest of her family. Tim is demanding to know what Steph meant by "spying on her" [_righteous anger_] to Babs, who is responding in hushed tones. Whatever she's saying is making Tim angry. Dick and Damian are having a quiet discussion about swear words and appropriate times for using them. Jason and Dinah are laughing at Bruce, and talking about Connor, who is sort-of Dinah's step-son, but not anymore, because divorce.

Alfred [_smug, amused_], ignoring the rest of the family, walks over to Bruce and offers him an ice pack, his expression as bland as humanly possible. Cass narrows her eyes at Alfred, wondering what he is up to.

"She didn't hit me that hard, Alfred," Bruce grumbles [_sulking, indignant, shocked_], trying to wave away the elderly butler.

"It wasn't for the slap, sir," Alfred replies dryly.

Bruce shoots Alfred a betrayed look, which Alfred ignores. Cass hides a giggle behind her hand, and looks at her watch. She should probably go look after Steph now. She can show Steph where that piano is in the Manor—Steph will probably want to play to calm herself down.

* * *

Steph and Harper go back to college—they have a triple, with Carrie as the third.

Steph goes back to classes, and has coffee dates with Cass. She studies with Tim, and visits with Helena, Renee, Barbara and Dinah at the Clocktower.

Her bad days still happen, her good days come and go, but Steph feels… _better_.

_Stephanie Brown of Earth_.

Steph falls off her bed, landing on the floor in an awkward sprawl. "What the—"

_You have the ability to inspire great hope_.

There is a ring in her room, floating and _speaking to her_. It glows a gentle, pulsing sapphire light, and as Steph looks at it… she feels at peace.

She reaches out for it, mesmerized.

_Welcome. To the Blue Lantern Corps_. The ring settles on her finger, and a wave of blue overcomes her, covering her from head to toe in a shimmering azul aura.

"Blue Lantern," she whispers, staring at her hand. She turns to the mirror. She's glowing, which is kind of awesome. Her t-shirt and jeans have turned bright blue, and there's a logo on her chest that matches the insignia on her ring. She guesses it's the Blue Lantern symbol.

"Ah good," there is an alien outside her window, glowing with the same aura. "It found someone. I was surprised to see a candidate in Gotham—but I am grateful, nevertheless. Come. The Black Lanterns are rising, and hope is needed."

"But… I'm not…" Steph stares at him. "Why me?" She asks, quietly.

"I do not pretend to know what the ring sees, Stephanie Brown," the alien smiles at her pleasantly, serenely. Steph feels hopeful just by _looking_ at him. "But it is not "optimism" that guarantees a ring. It is overcoming great obstacles, but not giving up. It is seeing the worst that the universe has to offer, and believing it can be _better_. It is seeing dark things, but still looking for good things. It is never giving up, even when things are at their darkest. Have you seen these things?"

Steph looks at her arms—scarred and battered, now covered in the glow.

"I understand," she says, quietly. "What is your name?"

"I am Saint Walker, the first Blue Lantern. Now come. All the corps are gathering, and we will be needed."

Steph goes to the window, and _jumps_, knowing, instinctually, that she will not fall.

Flying is freedom, flying is joy, flying is _beautiful_. She flies alongside Saint Walker, and she pauses, staring down at Gotham, just in time to see rainbow colored streaks fly through the night. "Other rings?" She asks.

"The world is under attack. Let us go."

"Give me a second," Steph whispers, closing her eyes. She manipulates the energy around her.

She opens her eyes, and Saint Walker smiles at her. She is wearing a long, sapphire cape, with a hood. The dark navy armor she wears beneath is familiar and sturdy, with a new insignia in the chest, where before she wore none. Her mask is different—it covers her nose and mouth instead of her eyes, the same color as her armor.

"Call me Spoiler," she says to Saint Walker, and he smiles at her.

They meet the other Blue Lanterns above Coast City, which is a raging battlefield of colors and zombies. There is Barry Allen, the Flash, who looks disconcerted with the whole flying thing. There is a dog—a _corgi_ of all things—who bounces around, panting and smiling, projecting his happy thoughts into all of their heads. There is another alien named Razer, who peers down at the battlefield, anxious. She wonders who he knows down there.

"I hope we are not too late?" Saint Walker says as they float.

"Only one other?" Razer says, shooting Steph a look.

"There is no more time to craft more rings, I am afraid," Saint Walker says. "We must hurry." He gestures to the bright blue, lantern shaped object—the power battery, Steph has been told.

The words pour through her naturally, without her having to say it.

"_In fearful day, in raging night_

_With strong hearts full, our souls ignite_

_When all seems lost in the War of Light_

_Look to the stars—for hope burns bright!_"

Steph looks down at the battlefield, and she sees her family below. There is Barbara, controlling a green mecha, fighting besides Cass, who glows an iridescent indigo and fights with her bare hands, her fists and feet reinforced with constructs. Jason and Damian, ferocious and red, fight side by side, vicious and brutal and _primal_. Dick flies above them all, wearing what appears to be pink stripper version of his Nightwing costume—complete with finger stripes. Bruce, glowing yellow, tears through the zombie creatures, while Tim, bright green, is next to someone that Steph recognizes as Starfire, who glows with pink light.

She spots Wonder Woman, also a Star Sapphire, and Scarecrow in the Sinestro Corps, and Queen Mera as a Red Lantern, and Hal Jordan fighting alongside a gigantic alien and what appears to be a robot green lantern, and dozens of others that she doesn't know.

She closes her eyes, and she knows, instinctually, that the others are doing the same.

She raises her fist into the air, and _hopes_.

She hopes that her family will come home, safe and unharmed.

She hopes that no one will lose the ones they love tonight.

She hopes that the battle will be over and they will be victorious.

She hopes with all her heart, with everything she has, and she feels a calm settle over her, steady and reassuring—the knowledge that…

"All will be well," she says, and she _means_ it, and a pulse of shimmering teal light explodes from her ring.

* * *

There are losses, there are deaths, but there are victories, and there are resurrections.

"Lian!" An archer hugs a small child, who is dressed all in white. Dinah is there as well, and all the archers are gathered around the girl, sobbing with joy.

Mera hugs Aquaman, who holds her tightly, and they both cry as well.

The Dibneys are surrounded by well-wishers, who laugh and cry and try to tell them everything.

Martian Manhunter embraces a girl named M'gann, saying nothing, at least out loud.

Steph looks at her ring, and goes to find her family.

* * *

They gather at the Batcave, and Steph is the last one there.

"Steph!" Cass runs towards her, and Steph banishes her mask so she can kiss Cass fully on the mouth, not caring that Bruce and Alfred and _everyone_ can see them.

"Blue Lantern, huh?" Jason grins—there is blood on his mouth, but he appears to be relatively stable. "I was wondering why we didn't have one of those. Cool outfit."

Tim hugs her. "What took you so long?"

"Saint Walker wanted to talk to me," Steph says with a shrug. She kisses his cheek.

"Stephanie." Bruce ways. Steph tenses—she hasn't spoken to Bruce since the night she slapped him.

_"You fear him," Saint Walker had said. Steph wondered how he knew. "Batman."_

_"Yes." Steph admits. "He… he hurt me, before. Maybe he didn't mean to; he probably didn't realize it, but he did."_

_Saint Walker nods. "Intention does not really matter, with pain of the past, does it? But do you think he would hurt you now?"_

_Steph looks at him. "What are you saying?"_

_"I am merely wondering if you are conflating your fear of Batman with your fear of someone else."_

Steph turns to face him. He glows with the light of fear, and that irritates her, because she's trying _not_ to be scared of him here, and could he really not be actually the incarnation of fear when she's trying to do this?

"Well done," Bruce says, quietly, simply.

Steph bristles, because she is _not_his protégé, she is not his ward, he has no _right_.

She forces herself to stop.

_He is_**_not_**_Arthur,_ she tells herself. _So stop acting like he is_. _He won't hurt you._

Steph nods in acknowledgement.

It's a beginning, at least.

Steph grabs Cass's hand, and they go to the roof together.

They sit on the tiles, and watch the stars, and cuddle together, kept warm by the glow of their rings.

Finally, the rings flash, and they know their time has ended.

They take the rings off, and let them drop, but, of course, they hover in midair. Cass's flies away. Steph's… doesn't.

It beeps at her, hovering closer. Steph freezes, realizing what it means. "I could… be a lantern?" The ring flashes again. "Oh…"

She thinks about how sure she felt when she wore it—about how calm and in control wearing it had made her feel.

She feels Cass's hand in hers.

"I'm sorry," she tells the ring. "But I think I'm needed here. There's more than one way to spread hope."

The ring blinks at her again, and then floats away.

"How?" Cass asks, quietly, as they stare up at the many bright flashes of color that dart into the sky, away from Earth.

"As Spoiler, of course," Steph says, leaning her head onto Cass's shoulder. "I think it's time the world has a transgender superhero, don't you?"

Cass squeezes her hand tightly. "I'll be there with you," Cass promises.

"Of course you'll be," Steph says. "You always are."

"I love you," Cass whispers, and it's a promise, it's a statement, it's everything Steph used to dream about hearing. Cass loves _her_, Stephanie Brown, the liar and the coward, the hero and the dreamer, the girl who ran away and became stronger than anyone ever could have predicted.

"I love you too," Steph says, and Cass might have already known this, [_love, need, want_], but saying the words out loud is still important.

They kiss, under the stars, and Steph thinks to herself, delighted.

_All is well_.

* * *

_**Epilogue**_

_One Year Later_

Damian crawls in Steph's dorm room window.

Steph looks up from her gender studies textbook, and sighs. "Can I help you?" She puts her book to one side, wondering if this is a Steph problem or a Spoiler problem.

Damian looks… uncomfortable, shifting. He's not wearing the Robin costume, which is slightly at odds with the fact that he came in _through her window_.

"Brown, you are a girl, correct?" Damian says, crossing his arms and looking petulant.

Steph blinks. "Yes?"

"But, you… you weren't _assigned_ a girl?" Damian looks down.

Steph feels incredibly confused. "I'm trans, if that's what you're asking."

"_That's_ the word," Damian mutters, studying the carpet with all the intensity that he'd scrutinize a crime scene. There's a long, painful silence. Then he finally looks up at her. "How did you _know_ you were a girl?" He demands, voice oddly soft and vulnerable.

Sudden, unerring clarity strikes her. "I just… did. Being called "he" felt wrong, I didn't like how I looked, I didn't feel like I connected with being a boy…"

Damian looks at her, eyes oddly desperate. "Is… is there a word… for when it's only like that sometimes?"

Steph breathes out suddenly. "Genderqueer, maybe. Or bigender, I suppose. Do you feel… like a girl when you don't feel like a boy, or is it neither?"

"I never said I felt like that!" Damian yells, eyes flashing. Steph waits, still sitting cross legged on her bed, even though all she wants to do is reach out and hug Damian. There is another, long silence. "A girl," he… (she?) finally mutters.

"Which are you now?" Steph asks practically.

"Boy," Damian says, scuffing the carpet with his shoe.

Steph nods, thoughtfully. "Alright… so, have you told anyone else?"

Damian shakes his head, returning to staring at the carpet.

"Do you want to?"

Damian looks at her, hapless, and shrugs.

"They'd be okay with it," Steph tells him, softly. "They're your family; they love you."

"Even Mother?" Damian blurts, and then clenches his jaw shut, embarrassed and angry with himself for the outburst.

"I don't know your mother, Damian," Steph says quietly. "But from what I've heard, she'll love you no matter what." She pauses, remembering something that Cass had told her last week. "She's staying in Gotham, right now, right? Do you want to go tell her now? I'll go with you, if you want."

Damian looks at her, eyes wide and terrified.

"Damian," Steph says, slipping off her bed to go to him. "Don't let me force you into anything you don't want to do. But your family will accept you. And… it's so much better when they know, Damian. It's _so_ much better."

Damian swallows, and nods. "Okay," he says.

* * *

Talia al Ghul is a fantastic woman, with beautiful dark skin and brown eyes, with long wavy black hair, and a beautiful voice.

She hugs her son with both arms, and coos his name. "Oh, we will need to get you new clothes, of course—your father has no fashion sense at _all_, and I don't trust Richard either. "Ah! Shoes, and makeup, of course—and maybe a wig? Oh, there is much to speak about; come, let us make tea—Stephanie, will you stay?"

Steph smiles, and shakes her head. "I've got a test tomorrow," she says. "Let me know if you need anything, Damian," she says. "I'll see you around."

Stephanie Brown leaves the apartment, and runs her hands through her hair, which now is halfway to her waist. She is twenty one years old, a superhero, a member of two super hero groups, and her friends are waiting for her, back at her dorm.

She has come a long way from that scared child, who was locked in a closet with her father outside, cursing her.

She goes forward.

She doesn't look back.

* * *

**A/N: **A NOTE ON CHARACTERIZATION, PARTICULARLY OF BRUCE AND TIM

Steph is NOT a reliable narrator. She is scared, she is prejudiced, and she projects her insecurities and father issues onto other people's actions. I did try to show this through Cass's sections in particular, but I'm not sure how well I did.

I personally view Bruce as kind of a dick, especially towards Steph and Cass, and it came out in this fic. Bruce doesn't mean to be like that, it's just the way it is. His suspicion of "Art" is grounded in the same reason that Crystal stays on drugs for the early portion of the fic-they both believe that Art is going to be a part of a cycle of violence and villainy. Which is completely unfair on Steph, of course, but people make assumptions. Bruce's treatment of Steph post-breakup with Tim is more "you kept a secret" and "you dated my child" than intentional homophobia on his part, but Steph has no precedent for how Bruce has reacted to other relationships, so she interprets it as homophobia, and it sets up her fears for future transphobia. Bruce (in my world at least) reacted similarly to Dick dating Kory, Cass and Kon, Tim and Kon, and pretty much every relationship any of his children have. But Steph doesn't KNOW this. Thus, the descriptions and characterizations of Bruce in this fic.

I love piano, as you might be able to tell from this fic. So here are some links to the songs that Steph plays and other people listen to over the course of the fic, along with a few other citations and notes.

* Tamora Pierce, "Lady Knight" Chapter 10, The Refugees Fight


End file.
